


The House Of The Old Ones

by Six_Piece_Chicken_McNobody



Series: The Dark Crystal Human AU [1]
Category: The Dark Crystal (1982), The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, M/M, wacky sitcom vibes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2020-06-04
Packaged: 2020-10-24 22:21:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 38,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20713463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Six_Piece_Chicken_McNobody/pseuds/Six_Piece_Chicken_McNobody
Summary: The two who live at #14 Sun Circle are, without question, the oddest neighbors on the cul-de-sac. One is a chronic sleepwalker, has a religious aversion to shoes, and moves at the speed of moss. The other is a retired costume designer, has a metal plate in his head, and moves at the speed of crack. They invented their own hookah flavor, can name every star in every constellation, and always give out the best candy on Halloween.They're an odd pair. But they'd be even odder apart.





	1. A Blur Of Forgetfulness

**Author's Note:**

> I have absolutely no idea where this is going. All I know is that I fell in love with these two the moment I saw them, and I was simply possessed by the urge to write about the greatest wacky roommates in the history of Thra.

**Gra: **bout to head into Bashas’ for flour, do we need any peanut butter while im here?

**Gra:** specifically chunky peanut butter?

**Gra:** standing in the aisle rn staring at options, trying to remember if there are any empty spaces in our pantry that should be occupied by big jars of peanut butter

**Gra:** and it’d be a helluva lot easier if you like idk answered my texts for once?

**Gra:** you don’t even have to answer you can just take a photo of the pantry and send it to me

**Gra:** hellooo??? Goh???

**Gra:** oh my GOD if you have your phone on SILENT AGAIN im gonna fuckiadnf;ashg a

**Gra:** we’ve been THROUGH this

**Gra:** a THOUSAND TIMES we’ve been through this

**Gra:** why do you DO this to me

**Gra:** Goh I sweat

**Gra:** I SWEAR

**Gra:** PICK UP YOUR PHOOOOOONEEEEEE

**Gra:** PICK U P PICJ IT UPP

**Gra:** PICK UP PICK UP PICK UP

**Gra:** DOOOO ITTTTTTT OH MY GOOOOOODD

**Gra:** Do you remember what it was like before they invented unlimited texting? God, how did we live?

**Gra:** GOH. Goh pick up. Pick up your phone

**Gra:** Just pick up your phone. Right now

**Gra:** Pick it up right now

**Gra:** that’s it im calling you

**Gra:** I HOPE YOURE HAPPY

**Gra:** oh ym god I se the dots

**Gra:** how long have those been there

**Gra:** Goh seriously just forget it I’m gonna call you in three seconds

**Gra:** Goh STOP TYPING we’ll be here for HOURS

**Gra:** SAKJHDLFJGAS;KD

**Gra:** im calling

…

**Gra:** are you KIDDING ME????????

**Gra:** WHY DIDN’T YOU ANSWER????????

**Gra:** I KNOW THE PHONE IS IN YOUR FUCKING HAND THE DOTS ARE STILL. THERE.

**Goh:** I…

**Gra:** fldhga;sdhf;aerw STOP

**Goh:** Was…

**Gra:** I am literally fucking begging you

**Goh:** In…

**Gra:** just TYPE THE TEX T AND. SNE DI T ALLL AT ON CE AJER;FDHGAGE YOURE KILLING ME

**Goh:** The middle…

**Goh:** Of…

**Goh:** Replying…

**Goh:** To your…

**Goh:** …messages.

**Gra:** …is that it? Are you done now? You’re all done being like this?

**Gra:** don’t answer that, we’ll be here all day

**Gra:** but PLEASE answer THIS

For the second time, Gra taps the phone icon beneath Goh’s name. Each ring that goes unanswered gives him a new itch. He moves the phone from one hand to the other so he can scratch his dry elbow. He shifts his weight so he can grind the toe of his sandal against the back of his knee. A spasm in his diaphragm launches a stress hiccup through his chest. The next one brings up traces of the leftover take-out that Gra had eaten for breakfast. As if his stubborn refusal to change his diet isn’t bad enough already. He’s going to get heartburn for sure.

The ringing stops, and Gra waits. In the silence, he hears Goh draw an impossibly long, deep breath.

“Yes…”

“I’ve been here for fourteen minutes already, so just listen—”

“…dear…?”

“…so just _listen_ to me, okay? Do we have any—no, do you _remember_ if we have any peanut butter in the house? If you say no, I’ll buy some just in case. I just don’t want our pantry overflowing if I can avoid it.”

“Hmm…”

“It’s a yes or no question, Goh. I did that on purpose, just for you.”

“…hang…on…”

“One syllable. I could _not_ have made this any easier.”

“I’ll go…”

“Oh my _god_, just listen to what I’m saying: can you _remember_, off the top of your big flat head, if we have any—”

“…and…check…”

“Holy fucking _forget it_, I’ll just assume we’re out. Which is what I _should’ve_ done in the—”

Goh draws another deep breath and lets it out in a half-groan, half-sigh. Gra repeats it back to him, two octaves higher and ten times as frustrated. “And _there’s_ the telltale sound of you hauling yourself off the couch, so _hooray_, that’s another forty minutes until you shuffle your tortoise ass from the family room to the kitchen. Y’know, when I said I wanted to grow old with you, I thought we’d do it by, like, painting sunsets and going sailing, all that nice, relaxing, retired couple stuff. I didn’t think I’d do it in _dog years_, standing in the bread ’n’ spread aisle of Bashas’ while I wait for you to amble across the house like a friggin’ Ent.”

“…you want…to take up…sail…ing…?”

“_Seriously_? _That’s_ what you got out of that? _Concentrate_, Goh. It would’ve been faster for me to ju-_hic-_ust drive home and check the pantry myself at this point.”

Gra winces and rubs his chest to get rid of the ache. Even through the unflinching silence on the other end of the line, he can hear Goh pause. “Are…”

“Yes.”

“…you…”

“Yes, I’m all right.”

“…all right…?”

“_Yes_. I just have the hiccups. Stay focused.”

Goh does stay focused, but not on the task at hand. Right as Gra realizes what’s coming, Goh says—with deep and thoughtful amusement in his voice—“Or…”

“Don’t.”

“…do…”

“Don’t you fucking dare.”

“…the hiccups…”

“Goh, I’m hanging up. I’m hanging up _right_ now. I swear, if you finish that sentence, I’m hanging up on you and I’m filing for divorce.”

“…have…”

“Don’t say it, do NOT say what I think—”

“…_you_…?”

“—you’re gonnagrRAHAHHHHHH—_HIC_.”

* * *

When Gra arrives at the house with a bag of flour and a jar of peanut butter, he goes straight to the kitchen to put them both away and forget this ordeal entirely. His hiccups are finally gone, though it was a trying drive home, especially when one hiccup coincided with a pothole which—despite Gra’s repeated complaints to the city council—has yet to be filled in.

Goh is already in the kitchen, holding up a large jar of peanut butter and clearly pleased with his discovery. “_Look_,” he says, with a combination of excitement and undulating slowness that Gra would normally find hilariously endearing. Today, he simply grumbles unintelligible nonsense as he puts the new jar in the pantry, then goes outside to sit on the patio with a book for the rest of the afternoon.

He grumbles some more when Goh joins him on the swinging bench fifteen minutes later, though the grilled peanut butter sandwich that Goh passes him goes a long way toward improving his mood. Gra puts the plate on his lap and scoots closer, holding the book between them so Goh can read along. Maybe it’s the gentle sway of the bench, or the fact that Gra has to divide his attention between reading and eating, but as they sit there together, they gradually fall into sync: Goh speeding up and Gra slowing down, until they’re reading the words and turning the pages in perfect unison.


	2. Eight Legs—And None Of Them Good For Much

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Arachnophobes might want to consider skipping this one.

Gra and Goh were delightfully—and in most instances, predictably—opposite. Gra flipped his lid at minor inconveniences while Goh remained completely unruffled. Gra drank coffee while Goh drank tea, though they were known to switch on occasion. Goh wore calm, simple earth tones, and Gra wore Hawaiian print button-downs over tie-dye T-shirts.

On the surface, Goh seemed like the more consistent of the two, the slow and steady tortoise to Gra’s fast and unreliable hare. But when it came to their sleeping habits, he was a wild card. He displayed a remarkable ability—and willingness—to nod off just about anywhere, at any time. He could stay awake for two days straight or sleep for two days straight, without the slightest impact on his functioning capabilities.

Gra, on the other hand, was a notorious morning person. His sleeping schedule may have been erratic, but his waking schedule was strict: up with the sun, no matter how much or how little sleep he’d gotten the night before. It was one of the few military habits he’d never been able to shake.

He awoke on a Tuesday morning just like any other. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, reaching high above his head until his back cracked. He twisted and turned as he rose to his feet, then shook himself loose. Goh slept on, not stirring even once.

Gra got dressed, brushed his teeth, roughed up his asymmetrical bedhead, and then went out for his daily jog. He always tried to leave the house before the sun broke through the horizon, so he could watch the day unfold. Back in the midwest, the sunrises were soft and pastoral, but out here, they were vivid and sharp. The colors changed so suddenly that the cactuses and mesas remained stark silhouettes, like it was daytime in the sky but still nighttime on earth.

His usual route was long but leisurely. He tried not to push himself too hard, remembering that he had to go easier on his joints than he used to. He nodded at the other joggers, whose names he didn’t know but whose paths he almost always crossed this time of day. He took a short rest at the halfway point, sunning himself like a lizard on his favorite rock. On the way back, he picked up a few bottles and cans from the side of the road, dropping them in his recycling bin once he got home. He grabbed the local paper from the driveway and changed into his house shoes—a soft pair of neon flip flops—before going back inside.

He put the coffee pot on and stretched his legs, enjoying the satisfying ache in them. Jogging left him a little sore, but it was the best way to burn off that excess energy he always seemed to wake up with. As the coffee dripped, Gra heard Goh haul himself out of bed and shuffle off to the bathroom. He’d most likely delay Gra’s shower with his slow and plodding morning routine, but that was exactly why Gra had a routine of his own. Rather than try to force Goh into his own style of living, Gra simply lived around him, accommodating his presence without letting it interrupt his flow, like a river rushing past a stone. They were completely asynchronous until roughly ten o’ clock, but they made it work. Besides, Gra liked having the early hours to himself. It gave him a chance to quiet his brain—as much as it _could_ be quieted, anyway.

After giving himself one more stretch, Gra finally rested, leaning against the counter and leafing through the newspaper just to have something to do. He started reading an article about blanket weaving groups at the community center, then paused when he heard Goh’s voice coming from the bathroom.

Now, Goh was a noisy person, especially when he’d first woken up. He seemed physically incapable of taking a single step or performing the simplest gesture without a groan, a sigh, a hum, or a grunt. But this one was abrupt, as if he’d started speaking and then cut himself off after the first word. It was a strange sound, especially for a guy who tended to let every sentence trail off with an ellipsis.

After a few moments of silence, Gra shrugged and went back to the newspaper. He barely scanned the next headline before he heard another noise, this time a distinct, unmistakable, “Uh.” Gra put the paper down and strained his ears.

“Goh?” he asked, crossing the kitchen and leaning past the refrigerator to look down the hall. “Y’all right?”

“Ahh…aaaAAAAHHH. AAAHHHH.”

It was a nonsensical sound, like an ambulance siren slowed down by one hundred percent, but Gra sprang into action in a heartbeat. Maybe Goh had fallen. Maybe he’d thrown his back out _again_, because he never, _ever_ stretched in the morning—_or_ the evening, or _ever_. The number of times he’d woken up from a nap on the couch or the hammock, and just rolled to his feet and gone about his day, and then groaned nonstop whenever he had to turn or bend or twist even a few degrees, acting like he had no idea _why_—

Gra forced himself to focus as he ran down the hall. There would be plenty of time to chastise Goh once he knew he was okay. The door was ajar, thankfully, and Gra barged in, calling his name urgently. Goh was standing in the middle of the room; he looked physically fine, if a little shaken. He backed up and bumped into Gra, who grabbed his arms to steady him. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

Goh pointed his toothbrush across the room, at the space between the tub and the toilet. “SPIDER.”

With both relief and annoyance, Gra sighed. “How big?”

“Couldn’t…tell…just saw something move…out of the corner of…my eye…”

After giving Goh’s shoulders a quick squeeze, Gra released him and grabbed a paper cup from the medicine cabinet. He crouched beside the toilet, resting his elbow on the edge of the tub for balance as he craned his neck forward. “C’mon,” he said in a singsong voice, trying to coax the spider out. “No hogging the bathroom.”

Goh shuffled closer, his curiosity getting the better of him. He leaned over to get a look at the spider, but all he got was a smack on the chin from the top of Gra’s head as the latter jerked back, shouting, “Oh, FUCK.”

“OW,” Goh announced, cupping his chin with both hands. Gra grabbed his shoulder and tried to hoist himself up, but all he managed to do was stumble over himself, repeating, “Oh mother of fuck no—no no NO—not today, not EVER—”

“What?” Goh asked. “What is it?”

And Gra responded, “_TARANTULA_.”

“…aaAAAHHH,” Goh said. And then, “AAA_AAAHHHHH_.” He tried to join Gra in fleeing the scene, but Gra’s legs were still weak from his jog. He kept tripping over his own feet, and in his confusion and alarm, Goh kept accidentally blocking his escape route, both of them hindering not only each other but also themselves.

It took them several seconds to make any headway, scrambling on the floor without going anywhere like a couple of Hanna-Barbera characters. When one of Gra’s flip flops fell off, he instinctively picked it up and whipped it at the toilet in self-defense. He shoved Goh ahead, despite his absolutely absurd protests (“Your…shoe—” “IT’S TOO LATE, LEAVE IT.”), and once they were back in the hallway, they slammed the bathroom door shut and made a break for it.

They didn’t stop when they reached the kitchen, or even the family room. The knowledge that a tarantula was lurking behind their toilet sent them running all the way out to the patio, where they finally stopped to catch their breath. Goh sat on the bench, laying his hand over his heart. Gra stayed on his feet, but he leaned forward, bracing his hands on his knees. One of their neighbors gave them a puzzled wave as she walked by with her dog, and Gra simply lifted one hand, still too out of breath to speak.

Once the panic melted away, Gra joined Goh on the bench, flopping down beside him and stretching his long legs. He wiggled his foot out of his remaining flip flop, for symmetry’s sake. When Goh could finally speak again, he said, “We locked it…in our bathroom…”

Gra nodded, still breathing deeply. “Yeah, uh…yep. We did. That’s definitely what we just did.” He tilted his head back, holding his forehead and pressing the heels of his palms against his eyes. It was too early for this. He’d been up for two hours now, and it was still _far_ too early for this.

“You need…to get…rid of it.”

“_Excuse_ me? _I _need to get rid of it? _We_ need to get rid of it. And while we’re at it, _we_ should figure out how the hell it got inside in the first place!”

Goh shifted his jaw as he considered the possibilities. “…did you shut…the sliding door…all the way…when you went on…your jog…?”

“…look, it’s not important how it got inside,” Gra said, earning himself a remarkably flat look from Goh.

“We need…a strategy…”

Gra agreed, but first, he sighed. “Okay. Just…let me have my coffee, please. I’m gonna need it more than usual.”

They helped each other up and returned to the kitchen—warily, as if their entire home might secretly be overrun with eight-legged intruders. Once they assured themselves that the kitchen was free of anything hairy, crawly, or predatory, Gra poured his coffee, Goh brewed his tea, and they sat at the table with a pen and a notepad to draw up their plan of attack.

* * *

The tarantula may have had the element of surprise, but Gra and Goh had opposable thumbs and human brains. Twenty minutes later, they put those advantages to use…to the best of their abilities.

They stood in the hallway with renewed determination, flanking the bathroom door. Goh was wearing a colander on his head like a helmet, and Gra wielded a pair of kitchen tongs. Before they opened the door, Goh nodded at Gra’s choice of weaponry.

“Are you…going to pick it up? …with _those_?”

“Well, what’re _you_ gonna do? Headbutt it? Back off, man—let me handle this my way.”

Goh looked unconvinced, but Gra clicked the tongs at him as aggressively as he could, then pointed them at the door. Goh opened it and waved Gra in, following him slowly and stopping after just two steps.

Gra crept across the floor, pausing intermittently to gather his courage. He held the tongs out in front of him, as if he were expecting to engage in combat with the beast. When he finally made it to the other side of the room, he took a few quick breaths to psyche himself up, leaned down, and peeked behind the toilet with a wince.

The tarantula hadn’t budged since he threw the flip flop at her. She was curled up in a tight, defensive little ball, completely motionless. Still, Gra paled instantly, saying, “Oh my god. Oh my god. Okay.” He wiggled his shoulders and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Here we go. Here we go, here we go. This is real life, this is happening. I’m doing this.”

He lowered the tongs by exactly one inch when Goh said, “Wait.” Gra drew a seething breath and raised his hand to his forehead, that single word undoing nearly half an hour of nerve-steeling.

“_What_? What _is_ it?”

“I just…thought…of something…”

“Oh?” Gra said, brightly and sarcastically pleasant. “Well, by all means. Why don’t you share it with the class?”

Goh’s eyes dulled and his mouth pulled taut. “Don’t…be…a dick.” Gra raised both hands in acquiescence, tongs and all, and Goh went on. “I was thinking…about that song. We should…try…flooding…the spider…out…”

“…yeah, I’m missing some steps here. Gonna need a little more than that.”

Goh sighed with forced patience, as if he were trying to explain something painfully obvious to a child. “In the nursery rhyme…the water…washed…the spider…_away_…”

He lifted his arms, moving them together from right to left in one smooth motion, simulating the gentle current of a fairy tale stream that might magically rush through their house and whisk away the offending visitor. Gra stared. He glanced at the shower wall, trying to get his thoughts together, and then he stared at Goh again, resting his tong-free hand on his hip.

“Okay,” he began matter-of-factly, “first of all: if you smoked the last of our pot while I was out on my jog, I’m gonna be pissed. Second, it was _rain_ in a _drainpipe_, not two idiots flooding their own bathroom. And third? The song is called ‘The Itsy Bitsy Spider.’” He pointed the tongs accusingly in the general direction of the toilet. “Does that thing look itsy _or_ bitsy to you?”

Goh raised his chin, observing what little of the tarantula he could see from all the way across the room. “It’s not…so bad…from over here.”

Gra rolled his eyes, muttering to himself as he tried to get his head in the game again. He lowered the tongs, bringing them closer to the spider inch by inch. He seemed to be getting over his fear the longer he looked at her, and after a few minutes, Gra had calmed down enough to start using the rational part of his brain again.

“You know, I should’ve brought a box, or, like, a bucket maybe? Just something to put her in once I pick her up.”

“And will that…be happening…sometime today…?”

Gra almost laughed at the irony of Goh accusing _him_ of moving too slowly. “Hey, wanna do me a favor and keep an eye on her for a minute?”

“Uhh…_no_…?”

“Oh, c’mon, you big baby. She hasn’t even moved. I just wanna run to the shed and see if I can find that bucket with the lid on it. God knows I can’t send _you_, or else we’ll be here till—”

For whatever reason—maybe her own sense of irony and comedic timing—the tarantula chose that moment to make her move. She didn’t try to flee; she simply seemed to realize that someone much bigger than her loomed overhead, armed with intimidating cookware, and she engaged in a sudden, full-body spasm of alarm.

She wasn’t the only one. Gra was so startled that he couldn’t even speak. He simply let out a choking sound and made a beeline for the door, shoving Goh to safety for the second time in a row.

Out in the hallway, they leaned against the wall and each other. Gra, being the taller of the two by a significant margin, slumped down on Goh’s head and shoulders for support, and Goh checked his own pulse as he gasped out, “Je…sus…_Christ_…”

“You know—” Gra swallowed and exhaled fiercely, still trying to catch his breath. “You know,” he repeated, “they say spiders are more afraid of us than we are of them.”

Goh drew a couple of deep, heaving breaths to gear up for his reply. “…bull…_shit_.”

* * *

Forty minutes later, they were still in the hallway. Gra dragged some chairs in because they were too paranoid to sit on the floor, even with a towel rolled up and shoved against the bottom of the bathroom door. Goh managed to pull his feet up and sit cross-legged on his chair, just to get some extra distance.

In contrast, Gra had both feet planted firmly on the floor. He had his hand on one knee and his elbow on the other, his shoulders slanted and his head low as he stared straight ahead. “Is that…your…’I mean business’…pose?” Goh asked, and without looking away from the door, Gra replied, “Yes. Yes it is.”

Goh stared at the door, too, though a little more contemplatively. He let a few minutes of silence go by before offering his input.

“I’ve…always…been afraid…of tarantulas.”

Gra snorted. “Well, good call moving back to Arizona, then. This never would’ve happened in Michigan.”

Goh muttered something under his breath, and Gra was nowhere near patient enough to ask him to repeat it. They sat there a while longer, letting their annoyance with each other fade away before they tried striking up a conversation again. When Goh figured enough time had passed, he said, “We could…call Va.”

“No. Last time he was here, he got high, ate all our cornbread, and fell asleep in the bathtub for thirteen hours.”

“Hmm.” Goh scratched the side of his head. “I don’t…remember…that.”

“I _know_.”

“…what…about…Mal?”

“Are you shitting me?” Gra asked, finally turning away from the door to give Goh a disbelieving look. “We’re not calling Mal.”

“If anyone…could catch…a tarantula—”

“Yeah, he’d catch it, and then he’d try and teach us how to make dinner out of it, or turn it into a hat, or whatever crazy survivalist shit he’s into these days.” Gra shook his head, resting his chin in his hand as he went back to staring at the door. “Look, if we ever get lost out in the desert, we’ll call Mal. Anything on our own property, we can handle ourselves.”

Goh nodded slowly, then paused. “…_can_…we…though?”

Gra sighed. “Well, I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?”

* * *

Over the next hour and a half, they came up with several more ideas, none of which survived past the brainstorming phase. Gra suggested making a trail of food for the tarantula to follow out the door, until Goh said, “But what if…more of them…follow the trail…in?” Goh suggested snaring it with some kind of rope—from a safe distance, of course—and leading it outside, until Gra made him realize how absurd that plan was by asking him if he really wanted to try and _lasso_ a _tarantula_.

Finally, Gra decided that the simplest solution might just be to kill the thing after all.

“We can’t…kill…it…”

“Well, it’s not like I _want_ to, but this is getting ridiculous. I haven’t been able to use the bathroom since six a.m.” Goh frowned, and Gra sighed as softly as he knew how. “You don’t have to be here for it. I’ll let you know when it’s all taken care of.”

Goh shifted his jaw, but whatever reservations he had about this plan, he kept them to himself. He went to the kitchen, not wanting to even know how Gra planned to carry out the task, though he did notice the newspaper was gone from the counter. Goh didn’t consider that to be the most prudent choice of weaponry, but he also didn’t care to get involved any more than he already was.

Not five minutes passed before he heard Gra shuffle down the hallway and into the kitchen. He was unusually quiet, foregoing conversation entirely as he dropped the rolled-up newspaper on the counter and opened the fridge to gather ingredients for a sandwich. Goh watched him with patient confusion, waiting for him to speak up and say the job was done. “…well…?”

Gra didn’t look at him, but he huffed a defeated little sigh as he spread guacamole on his bread. Goh was relieved, though not terribly surprised to learn that the old man’s inner hippie had won out over his inner war vet. He reached up to rub Gra’s back in consolation, moving his hand between his sharp shoulder blades. “You’re…very…sweet…”

Gra scoffed, but still he said nothing. Goh continued to pass his hand gently and comfortingly across his back. “But…if you aren’t…going…to kill it…you should…at least give it…seven more…flip flops.”

That was all it took to bring Gra’s mood right back to normal. “Oh, oh—with the jokes! THANK YOU for trying your hand at comedy NOW, of all times. That’s just _wonderful_.”

Goh drew his hand back, looking disproportionately offended. “I’m…coping…with _humor_. It’s a valid…reaction…to crisis. And that was…a solid…joke.”

He wasn’t wrong, but he wasn’t helping, either. They decided to spend another hour or so apart, giving themselves a break from the whole situation and each other. Gra ate his lunch on the patio with the newspaper—this time using it for its intended purpose—and Goh grabbed his walking stick, deciding to clear his head with a nice stroll around the neighborhood.

* * *

Often, getting some distance from a problem was all it took to reveal a solution. Not through the meditative act of walking, or from a bolt of inspiration, but rather from coming across a recycling bin that was practically overflowing with cardboard. After asking his neighbor if he could take some of it home for a project he was working on, Goh returned to the house with a few of the biggest pieces he could find.

They were a little unwieldy in the narrow hallways of their home, but other than that, it was the best solution they’d come up with. At Gra’s insistence, they practiced for over twenty minutes, making sure they could move at the same pace and create a kind of partition by holding the panels together, with tight corners where the edges met and no gaps between them.

When they were as ready as they thought they’d ever be, they returned to the bathroom. Gra held two pieces, and Goh held the third, keeping one hand free to open doors or move any furniture or unforeseen obstacles that might get in their way. He had put the colander back on his head—for continuity, security, or comedic purposes, Gra wasn’t sure. Either way, he was so optimistic about their newest plan that he didn’t even bring it up. He lifted both pieces of cardboard, braced himself, and said with calm, composed determination, “It’s go time.”

When Goh laid a hand on his arm to stop him, Gra nearly lost it. “_What_?” he asked. “What what _what_?”

Goh paused, as if he were about to address a matter of great importance and needed to treat it with the appropriate level of gravity. “…_Gra_…and Goh…time.”

Gra took a deep breath, but he let it out gently, putting one of the cardboard pieces down so he could pat Goh’s hand. “All right,” he said. “Good one.”

Goh nodded, and once they armed themselves with their makeshift shields again, he nudged the towel aside and opened the door.

It went very smoothly, overall. Both of them still needed a few minutes just to get used to the sight of the tarantula, but it was easier now that they had some modicum of control over the situation. The tarantula was surprisingly cooperative as well—it took a while to coax her out of her corner (“It’s not _her_ corner,” Gra insisted), but she seemed to have gotten nice and bored with the bathroom during the several hours that Gra and Goh spent procrastinating. She wanted out, and they were happy to show her the way.

They handled it about as well as anyone could have reasonably expected. They shuffled down the hallway together, directing the tarantula with a cardboard wall at her back and one on each side, ushering her along a default path. Gra muttered half-encouragements, half-threats, and Goh offered little absurdities such as, “Let’s go…you’re being…evicted…now…”

There was only one harrowing moment when the tarantula veered off course. She darted toward the washing machine, planning to squeeze between it and the wall, and in the ensuing panic, she might have made it. But Gra was quicker on his feet, despite them being so vastly outnumbered. He blocked her way and ordered Goh to hold their formation, and with a little inelegant scrambling from all involved, they finally managed to guide her out the door.

They followed her across the yard, but once she scuttled past the chokecherry trees, they figured they were finally safe. With a raspy sigh, Gra let his shoulders droop and tilted his face up toward the sky. Goh took the cardboard from him, rubbing his back again as he said, “Good…work…Sarge…”

They stayed out there for while, enjoying the weather and trying not to think about just how much of their day they had spent cooped up inside, coming up with strategies to deal with what turned out to be a smaller-than-average tarantula huddled behind their toilet. Eventually, Gra decided to go back in and start decontaminating the bathroom. When Goh asked what he wanted for dinner, Gra replied, “Oh, there’s _no_ way I’ll be done by dinner.”

But shortly after he went inside, Goh heard him shout through the window, “Curds and whey!” Goh snorted at the delayed joke, and once he disposed of the cardboard in their own recycling bin, he trudged back to the kitchen and started preparing a meal to celebrate their hard-earned victory.

* * *

After scrubbing the bathroom from top to bottom, Gra finally indulged in a shower that was overdue by nearly half a day. Despite his earlier claim, dinner was ready by the time he was done, and he and Goh ate their food on the couch with their feet on the coffee table, worn out but utterly content. They each had a large bowl of three sister soup, and when Gra requested seconds, Goh refused, only on the grounds that he needed to save room for dessert. There were no complaints when he brought out a plate of fry bread, still warm and coated in cinnamon sugar.

Goh handled the washing up afterward, since Gra had taken care of the bathroom. He stood at the sink, methodically swirling bowls and dishes beneath the faucet until they were clear of food. The warm water spilled off the plates in a calm, mesmerizing spiral, and it kept Goh distracted as Gra tiptoed into the kitchen, creeping up behind him with exaggerated stealthiness. When Gra was an arm’s length away—by his own measurements, anyway—he reached out and put all of his spindly fingers on the back of Goh’s head, ruffling them quickly up through his hair.

“AH,” Goh said, in his blunt, abrupt style of panicking. He dropped the bowl back in the soapy dishwater and shook his head like a horse, using his whole neck to toss his hair back and forth, trying to rid it of the invader.

Gra drew his hands back, laughing even when Goh grabbed a roll of paper towels off the counter and flung them out of pure instinct. They bounced off Gra’s head despite his attempt to duck, but that only made him laugh harder. Soon he was leaning against the counter just to stay on his feet, wheezing as Goh tried to calm himself down.

“That wasn’t…_funny_,” Goh insisted, raking his hands obsessively through his hair to reassure himself that there weren’t any unwanted guests in it.

“I know,” Gra said as he wiped tears from his eyes. “It was _hysterical_.”

Goh grumbled as he returned to the dishes, refusing to look at Gra even when he helpfully re-spooled the paper towels and put them back on the counter for him. He had a strong pout, but Gra knew he was taking the joke in good humor when he removed the colander from the drying rack and placed it—firmly and pointedly—back on his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, I'm from the northeast. I've only been out west a handful of times. But when I was a kid, I watched a Kratts' Creatures episode where they talked about how important it is to check the insides of your shoes for tarantulas before you put them on, and let me tell you, I will never forget that for as long as I live.  
(Edit: It actually might have been Zoboomafoo.)


	3. Seven Fires

Goh loved to cook. It was one of the few activities that enabled him—at least for a short while—to move through the world at a normal, human pace. He was a bit more conservative with spices and seasonings than Gra would have liked, but he had a knack for taking simple, spare ingredients and alchemizing them into something hearty, flavorful, and satisfying. He would have made every breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert fresh if it weren’t for Gra’s insistence on meal-prepping, partly for the sake of time-efficiency, but also to minimize the risk of fires by reducing the amount of time either one of them spent in the kitchen. Goh said he was being overly cautious, not to mention condescending. Gra replied, “We’ll see.”

For the record, Gra never had been and never would be a proponent of house fires. Having said that…he, like most people, did enjoy being proved right once in a while.

On one of their many peaceful Saturday afternoons, their rest and relaxation was interrupted by a small grease fire that caught in a pan which—due to an honest miscommunication rather than laziness or negligence—had missed out on a proper cleaning since its last use. Goh’s response time would have been award-worthy if it weren’t canceled out by his horrifically bad instincts. Gra practically leapt across the kitchen in a single bound to stop him from trying to douse the fire with a bowl of water. He drenched the fronts of their shirts in the process, and the bowl broke on the floor, but the greater crisis was averted. From there, it took Gra roughly four seconds to smother the flames with a lid and move the pan to a cool burner, a solution that seemed embarrassingly obvious to Goh once he calmed down.

Cooking was the ultimate lesson in risk versus reward. They hadn’t learned to cut back on Goh’s fry bread, despite the dangers involved in handling a pot full of hot oil, not to mention consuming too many carbohydrates. They did, however, learn to keep two fire extinguishers on the counter whenever the oven, stovetop, or microwave were in use. In some ways, this level of over-preparedness bordered on tempting fate, but when it came to starting accidental fires in this house, fate hardly needed tempting.

* * *

Gra had gathered the wind-stiffened laundry from the clothesline, and he was just beginning to iron one of Goh’s shirts when he heard Goh’s voice, deep and resonant with panic, uttering the exact word Gra had hoped to avoid by keeping him away from the iron in the first place:

“FIRE.”

Gra dashed to the kitchen, where he correctly assumed the emergency was. Once he unplugged the toaster, waved away the twin plumes of smoke rising from its slots, and allowed the appliance to cool, he turned the entire thing upside-down and used a pair of wooden tongs to extract a very well-done bagel from its depths. He wrinkled his nose and offered it to Goh. “Still gonna eat this?”

After a thorough inspection of the charred bagel—during which Gra became increasingly impatient at having to keep holding it—Goh replied, “How much…cream cheese…do we have…?”

With a sigh, Gra dropped the bagel on a plate with a comically solid _clink_ and handed it over. While Goh figured out how to make his breakfast edible, Gra got to work on the toaster. He might not have been the most tidy person, but he did pride himself on his ability to keep things clean. With just a bit of elbow grease, he had gotten the toaster shining as if it were only seventeen years old again.

Goh regarded it skeptically. “…still…smells…like smoke…” he said through a mouthful of burnt bread and cream cheese. Gra almost asked him whose fault _that_ was, but a quick sniff of the air confirmed that Goh was right. He furrowed his brow and inspected the toaster again, then the bagel, despite a muffled protest from Goh. He drummed his fingers on the counter for a few seconds, puzzled, and then, in an abrupt and alarming burst of energy, he said, “Oh, _damn_ it, Goh—” and darted back to the bedroom.

He arrived in time to unplug the iron before it burned the house down, but it was far too late to save Goh’s shirt, especially after Gra threw it to the floor and put the flames out with a frantic and impromptu stomp dance. He took the water bottle from the ironing board and spritzed his toasted feet while Goh appeared in the doorway, observing the remains of his shirt with a disappointed, “Oh…” and a forlorn bite of his bagel.

Gra proceeded to pack the iron up as soon as it was cool enough to do so, asking what kinds of corporate assholes ironed their clothes _anyway_, while Goh carried his shirt outside to give it a proper burial in the garbage can.

* * *

Whenever Goh burned sage, he opened a window to keep the smell from permeating the house, per Gra’s request. Gra should have also requested that Goh use a bowl made of non-thermally conductive material and refrain from falling asleep on the couch. If there was one thing Gra hated more than the smell of sage stuffing up his nose, it was coming home to find his coffee table about to catch fire.

The next few seconds were a chaotic blur. Gra tore one of the tapestries off the wall and used it to beat down the nascent flames, sending tiny ashes and singed plant matter into the air. Goh, whose feet had been propped on the coffee table and were now being whipped repeatedly with a heavy blanket, awoke in a panic and kicked instinctively, aiming for the nearest moving thing until he realized that thing was Gra. Luckily, Gra was too deep in survival mode to react with more than a quiet _oof_ as heel connected with stomach.

Once the fire hazard and his bowl of sage were taken care of, Gra flopped onto the couch beside Goh for a well-deserved rest. Miraculously, both the coffee table and the wall hanging suffered minimal damage, sustaining only a few light burns which would easy pass as part of their patterns. Goh claimed that they added character, displaying remarkably good humor for someone who had nearly woken up on fire. “Do you mind…if I…smoke…in here?” he asked when he noticed a wisp of gray curling from the hem of his pants, and Gra couldn’t help chuckling as he flapped the tapestry again to put it out.

* * *

The less said about the time Gra set the bed on fire with one poorly placed sandalwood-scented candle, the better.

* * *

Kids loved summer block parties. Kids loved puppet shows. And kids loved sparklers. Combine all three, along with Goh’s dexterity and Gra’s theatrical flair, and everyone had a recipe for a fun, entertaining afternoon.

In hindsight, trying to hold the sparklers with the hands of puppets might have been courting disaster. But Gra’s natural showmanship demanded that they include them in the performance. Children were running through yards with them, after all. How dangerous could they be?

Gra found his answer to that rhetorical question while he clapped his hands rapidly on the end of Goh’s braid, as if he were trying to kill a mosquito rather than put out a fire. Goh shook his head fiercely, making everything worse. They finally managed to get the situation back under their dubious control when Gra swiped two cups of lemonade from some nearby children—and a colorless snow cone from a third, just for good measure—and dumped the refreshments over Goh’s head.

They had to smooth things over with the parents afterward, some of whom accused the pair of reckless child endangerment, and others who simply asked that Gra buy a round of lemonade to replace the ones he stole. In addition, Goh was forced to get a haircut, which left his braid hanging at about half the length that he preferred.

But on the bright side, it was the most memorable and talked-about block party in the history of the cul-de-sac, bar none.

* * *

For Gra’s birthday, Goh insisted that he open his present before having cake. He plunked the gift down on the table, and Gra raised his eyebrows as he looked it over. “Hmm…gee,” he said, assessing the cylindrical shape covered in wrinkled wrapping paper, except for the black handle and nozzle fully visible at the top. “I’m stumped. What _ever_ could this mysterious present be?”

“Open…it…”

Gra did so, revealing his brand new fire extinguisher.

“It’s a…fire…extinguisher.”

“Ya don’t say?”

“Let’s light…the cake…so you can…give it…a test…run…”

Gra scoffed as Goh struck a match and lit a candle, the first of dozens. “Oh, please. I _think_ I can handle blowing out some grocery store candles without burning down the house.”

And he did, with the help of a few blasts from his new present when the flames—perhaps inevitably—spread out of control. After Gra extinguished his cake (along with the errant balloon that drifted by and dragged its string through the fire, _and_ the napkin and placemats it proceeded to invite to the party), he and Goh spent the next half-hour cleaning all the wax and foam and dessert off the walls.

“So…” Goh said as he dumped a wad of frosting-laden paper towels into the trash bag that Gra held open for him. “Did…your wish…come true?”

“Well, there was no _explosion_, and the house is still standing, so…yeah. Chalk this birthday down as a wild success.”

Goh nodded, satisfied with that outcome. As he continued gathering very festive debris from the table and floor, Gra added, “But, uh, little suggestion for the future? Let’s do, like, one candle per decade, not, y’know…per year. Maybe.”

Goh dropped the next dozen or so half-melted candles in the trash and said, “…agreed.”

* * *

When Goh’s birthday rolled around a few months later, it was almost surreally calm. He loved the shirt Gra gave him as a replacement for the one he accidentally set ablaze on the ironing board (though Gra maintained to this day that that incident—like all major events in their life—had been a joint effort). They had a mellow celebration at home, which consisted of ordering take-out, having a 1950s movie marathon, indulging in an unscheduled hour-long nap, and avoiding the kitchen as much as possible.

As soon as it got dark enough, they went outside and dragged the oversized papasan to the fire pit. It was an odd chair: if only one of them were to sit in it at a time, they’d struggle to find a comfortable spot. But the two of them curled up side by side without a care for Goh’s chronic inflexibility or Gra’s sharp joints. Somehow, against all odds, they fit together perfectly, a yin-yang of absurdities and personality quirks.

Gra had brought their largest and warmest blanket out with them, and they bundled up beneath it as they waited for the annual meteor shower to begin. To keep his hands busy and his mind (and mouth) quiet, Gra braided Goh’s hair, which had already regained a few inches of its former length since the puppet show incident. They sat out there together, warmed by the fire and delighted by the meteors. A few feather-light embers drifted upward, seeming to cross paths with the streaking lights even though they were an atmosphere apart. Gra and Goh watched both sets of sparks as they danced through the night and, at a safe distance, helpfully extinguished themselves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This whole chapter is one big PSA.


	4. Brighter Than Sunlight, Louder Than Thunder

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little less funny and a little more angsty this time. Brief mentions of blood, injuries, PTSD, etc. No one gets a metal plate in their head just for the hell of it.

Sharing a bed—however comforting it may have been—was something that Gra and Goh had spent a lot of time figuring out how to do successfully. A lot of time, and no small amount of money. In the span of a single year, they tested out a canopy bed (Gra complained that it was like sleeping in a tent), a Japanese-style futon (Goh needed help rising to his feet after spending the night on the floor), and a waterbed (both of them got vertigo).

The hammocks had been their stupidest idea, by far. It was Gra who installed them, inspired by his memories of growing up in the American Midwest, when he would shirk his chores to take an afternoon nap out in the fields by his house. But the sweet, pastoral glow of nostalgia faded when he promptly got tangled up in his hammock like a fly in a web. Goh, on the other hand, flat-out forgot where he was, tried to roll onto his side, and hit the floor with a thud so loud that Gra was sure he’d left a crater.

In the end, they accepted that there was probably no holy grail to a good night’s sleep. With gouged wallets and humbled egos, they returned to the plain, firm, queen-sized mattress that they had begun this whole experiment with.

Aside from the occasional misstep, such as the hammocks or the futon, Gra took sleep hygiene much more seriously than Goh. The latter still frequently dozed off on the sofa, sunken in a horrible slouch. Gra winced at the mere thought of putting that kind of pressure on his lower back. Sometimes he woke Goh up immediately and made him do five minutes of stretches. Other times, he simply threw a blanket over him and let him rest.

One evening, Gra came home a little later than usual, and there was Goh, snoring peacefully on the couch, reclined in an ergonomic catastrophe of a sleeping position. Gra _tsked_ as he lowered the volume on the TV and turned off the kitchen lights. He unfolded one of their afghans and draped it carefully over Goh, only to then flop down beside him, stirring him from sleep after all. Goh blinked in the now dim room, looking at the blanket as if he couldn’t begin to comprehend how it had ended up on top of him. “Didn’t mean to wake ya,” Gra said unconvincingly, as he sprawled and took up far more space than even his long limbs required. Goh pushed against the arm of the sofa until he was sitting a little more upright, yawning.

“I was…meditating…”

“Heh, yeah? Looked a lot like sleeping to me.”

Goh blinked again, dazed and bleary. “It was…a…_deep_…meditation.”

Gra snorted, unable to argue with that. “Well, how long’ve you been ‘meditating’ for, then?”

“…what time…is it…now…?”

“Nighttime.”

Goh nodded slowly. “…a…while.”

“You gonna be able to sleep tonight?”

“Al…” Yawn. “…ways…”

“Yeah, sure ya will.” Gra rolled his neck and got to his feet, grabbing Goh’s knee and shaking his leg fondly as he passed by. On his way to the bathroom, he added over his shoulder, “Just don’t bother waking me up. We don’t both have to suffer just ‘cause you screwed up your sleep schedule, _again_.”

Goh sighed and pushed the blanket off of him, leaving it in a crumpled pile at one end of the couch. He did a few half-assed stretches, just so he could tell Gra he’d done them, and then he dutifully went to get ready for bed, sticking his tongue out when he passed the bathroom and getting flipped off in return while Gra chuckled through a mouthful of toothpaste.

* * *

Despite his insistence that he would sleep through the night, Goh awoke after only a few hours, which genuinely puzzled him. When a chill rolled up his back, he turned over and saw the reason why. Not only was Gra gone, but the covers on his side of the bed had been carelessly thrown back, as if he’d gotten up in too much of a hurry to fix them.

Goh got up as well, but not in a hurry himself—never in a hurry himself. He sighed and grunted and hummed as he went around the bed, pulling the covers back up to keep the night air from permeating the sheets any more than it already had. Once everything was arranged to his satisfaction, he found his robe, shrugged his stiff shoulders into it, and began his slow, shuffling trek through the house.

This robe was one of the oldest articles of clothing that Goh owned. Years of mending and reinforcing its fabric had given it a thicker, sturdier quality than the average bathrobe, turning it into more of a long, heavy housecoat. He had sewn every stitch and tied every knot by hand, and often used whatever scrap materials were readily available, giving the coat a mismatched, eclectic sort of charm. “Gohseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” was what Gra liked to call him when he wore it.

He wasn’t all that far off. Goh had tried many times to explain the properties of “dream spirals,” like the ones that adorned his coat. The artistic and spiritual merit of crafting one’s thoughts into a long, winding thread, and then tracing it all the way back to the center to begin again.

Gra dismissed it as new-age nonsense, but to his credit, he had given it a shot. He had sat outside with Goh one warm, sunny afternoon, dipping his toes into the practice of meditation before throwing his hands up and claiming that his brain just wasn’t _built_ for this kind of thing. His thoughts spiraled all right—like a tornado, loud and chaotic and completely out of his control. Goh gently suggested that Gra give it another try, this time for a little longer than four minutes, but Gra was already on his feet, furiously scratching the side of his head and stomping back to the house to “go do something productive.”

Goh was disappointed, but he wouldn’t have let it show, even if Gra had stuck around and given him the chance. He settled back down and resumed his own meditation, not blaming Gra for giving up so quickly. It must have seemed like an impossible task to form connected, continuous thoughts in a mind made out of cut and tangled threads.

Goh trudged to the end of the hallway and looked around. None of the lights were on, and the house was lit only by the digital displays of kitchen appliances and the thin beams of moonlight that came in through the window. He almost didn’t see Gra in the darkness, seated at the very edge of the couch. He was oddly still and oddly quiet, with his feet planted firmly on the floor, his elbows on his knees, and his forehead cupped in both hands. His fingers were laced together as if he were trying to put his mind in a vice and force out whatever was in there. His shoulders were so tense and his grip so tight that his head looked as heavy as a medicine ball.

Goh crossed the room, the hem of his coat dragging softly on the carpet. It didn’t used to do that, he was pretty sure. Gra was probably right about his posture needing some work. Another problem for another time, Goh thought, as always. He sat down beside Gra, trying not to jostle him but not going out of his way to be careful, either. His bare and callused foot brushed up against Gra’s, and he frowned. He took the afghan from the end of the couch and shook it open, draping it over Gra’s sharp shoulders. After a moment, he took his coat off and laid it there as well.

Gra said and did nothing, still squeezing his head with both hands. Goh waited until he was sure he wouldn’t interrupt himself with a yawn, then said, “Mi…graine…?”

No response. “Night…mare…?” Goh guessed next. Again, no response, not even a non-verbal one. Goh shifted his jaw in thought.

“…back…rub…?”

Still, Gra said nothing. He didn’t look at Goh, or even open his eyes. But after a few more seconds of silence, he leaned over a couple inches, offering his back. Goh pressed his fingertips against it, firmly enough to be felt through the layers of clothes and blankets, and Gra dropped his arm, letting it rest fully on his knee while he supported his head with one hand. He tried as hard as he could to relax—counterproductively, he knew—while Goh swept his hands in slow, repetitive circles. He kept his focus on Gra’s back, but he imbued his touch with so much thoroughness and care that Gra’s entire body responded to it. The errant pieces of himself gradually shifted back into place, and he felt grounded all the way from the top of his skull to the soles of his feet. It was a constant and mindful motion, the kind that settled the dust instead of kicking it up.

Goh, still tired from his loss of sleep and yet working tirelessly, traced the spiral patterns of his dreams that he’d woven into his coat. Gra wished his own dreams could lead him down paths like that, ending in calm contemplation instead of wicked memories. He gripped his forehead with his entire hand as pain lanced through it again. At this point, it didn’t make a difference whether the source of the pain was a migraine or a nightmare. It all felt the same to him, as sharp and blinding as sunlight on rotor blades.

He could remember looking up the terraced slope of a rice field, rising hundreds of feet from where he lay. The flashes of light on the helicopter changed the landscape from green to gold to green again. In his delirium, Gra had thought it was the most beautiful, unearthly sight he’d ever seen—what Heaven must have looked like, to eyes that weren’t meant to see it. _Yet_, he thought, with what was surely unearned optimism.

The helicopter was relentless. It was always the first thing he heard in his memories-turned-nightmares, droning on like a saw in empty air, eager for something to rend apart.

He remembered feeling like he was having some kind of fit as he lay there on his back, his limbs jangling uncontrollably as if he were being electrocuted. But he also remembered a voice repeating, “he’s dead—oh, God, he’s dead,” so he assumed he must have been lying still and his brain was just misfiring, as usual. More voices filtered in and out with varying levels of clarity. One man, close enough to assess the damage, muttered, “_jesusmaryan’joseph, Jesus Christ_.” Another man—farther away, thankfully—vomited, and a woman swore in a language that Gra had barely bothered to learn. Muddy water sloshed against—_into?_—the side of his head, and blood leeched out into the earth. Wet grass stuck to wet hair, indistinguishable in the mess, and above him, the helicopter blades spun on, frantic as a heartbeat.

“How are…you feeling…?” Goh asked. Gra gingerly let go of his head. It still ached, but not too much to lift.

“Like I’ve got a screw loose,” he said, rubbing his eyes, and then rolling his neck until it cracked. Goh kept massaging his back, the warmth from his broad hand reaching all the way through the coat and blanket and Gra’s T-shirt.

“…li…teral…ly…?” he asked through an impressive yawn. Gra snorted, still too tense and tired to actually laugh. Goh dragged his hand up Gra’s back and squeezed his shoulder. “You should…try…meditating…again…”

“Mmmm…nah.”

“It…helps…to visualize…”

“Oh, visualizing is the _last_ thing I need help with.” Gra raised one finger and drew circles in the air, rapidly. “You say it’s a spiral, I say it’s a tailspin. It’s not gonna work.”

Goh frowned, as if—after years of suggesting this technique—he was finally giving it some serious consideration. He raised his hands and drew them apart, studying the wide space between them. “…not…a spiral…then.” Slowly, with Gra watching, he brought his hands back to each other, shrinking the distance down to nothing as he cupped his palms together. “More like…a coil…maybe…?”

Gra was dizzy just thinking about it, but then again, he’d been dizzy long before Goh joined him. When Goh managed to scoot himself to the end of the couch, Gra sighed and lay down, settling in with surprising heaviness for someone his size. He rested his head on Goh’s lap while Goh sifted his fingers through his scraggly but fluffy hair. Very gently, he pulled on a lock of it, sliding his fingertips from roots to ends, as if he were weeding out all the loose and fraying threads from Gra’s mind.

He repeated the gesture over and over, engaging in this simple act with more patience than Gra had devoted to anything in his entire life. When he made Gra’s hair look sufficiently disastrous, Goh pushed his fingers back into it and massaged his scalp. He neither avoided nor lingered on the problem area, treating the entire skull as if it were intact again, with no part of it requiring special attention. They both knew it was far from true. Gra could still feel the difference, in metallic “sparks” or “zings” that raced across his nerves if he waited too long between tune-ups.

He stared across the dark room, too tired to even close his eyes. He gazed at the relief carvings and messily folded blankets, and their old records, carefully stored to maintain their shape and quality. For the most part, they kept their collections separate, but there was one shelf reserved for mutually agreed-upon artists: Judy Collins, Phil Ochs, Tom Paxton, Gordon Lightfoot, among others. Gra had tried to sneak a few Creedence Clearwater Revival albums in there, but they never lasted long. Goh always clucked his tongue and moved them back to Gra’s shelf, claiming they were “too…rock…’n’ roll…” for him.

Gra let his eyes shut, deciding that he might as well give that meditation thing another try. With the faint memories of his favorite folk ballads drifting in and out of his mind, he naturally found himself visualizing the “thought spiral” as a phonograph needle, precise but gentle, bobbing up and down as it slowly wound its way to the center of the disc. It was the same way Goh was swirling his fingers through his hair: not an outward spiral, but an inward one. It funneled Gra’s thoughts away from his past and back to the present, where a sturdy house and loving partner joined together to form the central pillar of his life.

Gra tucked Goh’s coat tighter around his shoulders. It would never be enough to get rid of the pain entirely, he knew, as Goh performed a miracle of flexibility to bend down and kiss the side of his head.

But it was enough on its own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suggested listening: "Sit Down Young Stranger," by Gordon Lightfoot. Or any protest song of that era, really.  
Gra and Goh just listen exclusively to "dad music," i.e. folk rock of the '60s and '70s.


	5. Imprint

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, new characters! The neighborhood is in fact bigger than just Gra, Goh, and the occasional tarantula.

Even in the quirkiest, most eccentric neighborhoods, there was always one house that stood out from the rest. The house with the boarded-up and blacked-out windows. The house whose shrubs never seemed to flower. The house that never had a car in its driveway. The house with the backyard from which lost frisbees and baseballs were never recovered.

In Sun Circle, that house was Tek’s.

He was a suburban legend, the kind of guy whose “reputation preceded him” (and who would have been baffled to learn that he _had_ a reputation among his neighbors, given how few of them he had even met). His general behavior and appearance inspired endless speculation, painting him as quite an insane individual, a prototypical mad scientist who had set up shop in an otherwise charming and pleasant neighborhood.

In reality, Tek was just particular, antisocial, and easily irritated. He _did_ board up some of his windows, but only for the sake of his more light-sensitive tenants. There were never any cars in his driveway because he didn’t entertain, and due to medical reasons, he didn’t drive, either. The shrubs that lined his walkway and the front of his house weren’t a flowering species. And as for the various recreational items that found their way into his yard and seemed to vanish off the face of the earth…well, _that_ he had no explanation for, though he did point out to the neighborhood adolescents that if they were as good at _catching_ frisbees as they were at _throwing_ them, maybe they could avoid this problem altogether.

For how little he interacted with his neighbors, he seemed to be at constant war with the children of the cul-de-sac. They were a troublemaking lot, and Tek had always had a knack for finding things to complain about. It didn’t help that he was almost always _right_, which gave him no incentive to learn how to choose his battles or let an argument go.

However, despite his prickly personality, Tek wasn’t really averse to company—just human company, for the most part. His house may have been barren on the outside, but it teemed with life on the inside. His numerous creepy crawlies had the run of the place, and he frequently welcomed new additions to his brood.

But every living organism needed its space, even from fellow cold-blooded companions, and Tek was no exception.

* * *

When Gra returned from his morning jog, he was sweaty, flushed, and on the kind of cardio-induced high that Goh had never experienced and would never experience a day in his life. He entered the kitchen with a birdlike bounce in his step, dropping the local paper and a pale yellow flyer on the table as he sang, “_Oh, what a beautiful mooorniiin’, oh, what a beautiful daaayyy…_”

His voice had lost much of its luster over the years, but what he lacked in richness and finesse, he made up for with the reckless abandon that came from reaching retirement age and realizing that you no longer gave a damn what either society or your husband thought of you. Goh shoveled pancakes onto a plate and resisted the urge to walk out on this one-man performance of _Oklahoma!—_which he had not asked for—and crawl right back into bed. “Good—”

“_I’ve got a beautiful feeeeeeliiing_,” Gra went on, kissing Goh’s cheek briefly as he took the plate from him, “_everything’s going my waaayyy_…”

“…morning…” Goh sighed, joining Gra at the table with a cup of tea. Gra was considerate enough to stop singing while they sat down to eat, though he hummed a few more bars through mouthfuls of pancakes and peachberry syrup, flipping idly through the paper.

With Gra hogging the local news, Goh settled for the nearest available reading material: the yellow flyer, torn and tattered from when Gra had impulsively whisked it off a telephone pole. He smoothed out the crinkled page to make it more legible, though there wasn’t much he could do about the handwritten scrawl. As he took a bite of his doughy, sugary breakfast—considering as he did so that maybe it was time to evaluate their diet again—Goh scanned the first paragraph of the flyer and paused. “…hm.”

“Hmmm?” Gra repeated, a little more musically. Goh washed down the pancakes with a sip of tea and tapped the flyer.

“Have you…read this…?”

“Nope,” Gra said, looking for a pencil so he could start the crossword puzzle, in spite of his tendency to always leave them half-finished. “It was colorful and posted at eye-level, so I snagged it. Why? What’s it say?”

Goh turned the flyer around and slid it across the table to Gra, trading it for the arts and culture section of the paper. Gra picked it up and read it once, and then once again. “Huh. This is…” He flipped it around to see if there were any elucidating paragraphs on the back, and found none. “…kinda vague.”

“…concerningly…so?”

“_Intriguingly_ so.” Gra laid it flat again and pointed to the words _rehome_ and _specimen_, two of the only words that he was confident he could make out. The others had either fallen victim to the sign-writer’s chaotic penmanship, or required a more thorough understanding of taxonomical terms than Gra possessed. “Gotta admit, though, he’s not gonna find many takers via telephone pole. Poor guy’s gonna be stuck with whatever monster he’s got over there forever.” He smoothed out the paper some more, superfluously, and took another bite of pancake. “I’m not saying _we_ should take the thing off his hands,” he went on, while Goh gave him a reproachful look for talking with his mouth full. “Obviously. But we could check it out, at least? Help spread the word around? I mean, I dunno about you, but the last thing I want is for his home zoo to get so crowded they all start spilling out into the street.”

Goh hummed his assent, partly out of a sense of neighborly camaraderie, and partly due to a lack of anything better to do that day. They finished their breakfast, took a pair of quick showers, and around mid-morning, they journeyed across the cul-de-sac to Tek’s notorious house.

Despite his cooperation, Goh grumbled the entire way. “What, too far to walk?” Gra teased. “I thought you were on board with this.”

“I…am…”

“…ya still don’t like him, huh?”

“It’s not…that. He’s horning in…on our…territory.” Gra raised an eyebrow. “You know. As the neighborhood…oddballs.”

Gra looked taken aback, if not outright scandalized. “We’re not the neighborhood _oddballs_,” he insisted. “We’re the coolest people here. We give out _Zagnut bars_ on Halloween. We do puppet shows! We do _handmade_ puppet shows! For _free_! And _whose_ wardrobe did Li raid for last year’s production of _Mamma Mia_? Not my old costuming wardrobe, by the way—my regular, everyday closet. We’re _fixtures_ in this community, and…y’know…” Gra scratched his head, just behind his ear. “Yeah, okay. Now that I’m saying it out loud…” He waved his hand in some dismissive, noncommittal way while Goh nodded sagely, watching him accept the truth with great satisfaction. “Yeah. We’re a little oddball. Maybe.”

“We are…_exceptionally_…odd.”

Gra snorted at the pride in Goh’s voice, as if this were a reputation they had carefully cultivated and needed to defend. “Well, it’s been a while since you’ve seen Tek. Let’s hold off on awarding any titles until you’ve had a chance to reset your gauge.”

They headed up the walkway, and Gra knocked on the door while Goh stooped down even lower than usual to try and peer through the nearest window. They heard some shuffling from inside, accompanied by light muttering and uneven footsteps approaching the door, and then a clear and displeased, “Yes?”

“Hey, Tek,” Gra said, as if this were a perfectly normal way to greet a neighbor. “It’s Gra. And Goh.” There was a pause, during which the door remained unopened. “…from across the street?”

Another pause, though this one was followed by a tiny squeak as the peephole latch was lifted. Tek must have ascertained that they were who they claimed to be, because instead of saying, “Go away,” he offered them an equally annoyed, “What do you want?”

Goh rolled his eyes, but Gra simply took the folded flyer from his back pocket and held it up. “Found your plea for help on my jog this morning. Would it be possible to get some face time with the, uh…specimen? Assuming it _has_ a face, anyway—hard to tell what we’re dealing with here. I feel like I need a medical dictionary to understand half of this jargon. Heh, what, didja get paid by the letter or something?”

Even without seeing Tek, Gra could tell he bristled at his flippant tone. “If you aren’t serious about adoption, then I will not permit you to stand here and waste my time,” he said stiffly. “_Or_ his.”

“Hey, if you don’t advertise outside the neighborhood, you’re wasting your own time. How many people do you think are gonna risk coming onto your property for _any_ reason, let alone to check out what could be some kinda poisonous, man-eating animal? I mean, there’s _no_ info on this thing,” he went on, reexamining the flyer. “Is it a reptile, amphibian, fish? Arachnid?”

There was no answer, which most people would have taken as their cue to leave. “C’mon,” Gra said instead. “You _just_ put the flyer up, and you’ve already got an interested party. Can’tcha take twenty minutes out of your busy schedule for a meet and greet?”

Goh was sure at this point that Tek would send them packing, but apparently, Gra’s peculiar brand of charm worked. They heard a quiet sigh, and then a long series of locks being undone. But even after that build-up, Goh had little time to brace himself before the door swung open and revealed their neighbor, in all his cantankerous glory.

Usually, when people referred to their “good side,” as in photography, it was a tongue-in-cheek comment. Never had there been anyone with such an indisputable “good side” as Tek. It wasn’t that the other side was _bad_. It was just hard to figure out how he even functioned sometimes, with the left half of his body being relatively ordinary, and the other half being…what it was. He had a prosthetic arm _and_ a prosthetic leg, in addition to a glass eye in his right socket. It was ice blue, despite his eyes being naturally brown. Maybe he had picked the most conspicuous option available on purpose, as if his normal stare weren’t off-putting and accusatory enough.

“Hey, Tek,” Gra said, nodding at both his neighbor and the small green parakeet perched loyally on his shoulder. “Hey there, Sid. Long time no see. How’ve you two been?”

“Well, come on, come in,” Tek said impatiently, shuffling himself aside with the aid of a sturdy cane. Gra stepped over the threshold, completely unruffled by their host’s lack of social grace. Goh followed silently, nodding once at Tek as he entered his home.

“This way,” Tek said, leading the two of them beyond the foyer—which, to their relief, was specimen-free. When they passed through the next door, however, they entered what appeared to have once been a kitchen. At some point, it had been converted into a kind of arthropodan sanctuary, which begged the unfortunate question of how Tek prepared his meals.

“Mind the tarantula tank,” he said casually over his shoulder. Goh, who had been making Gra walk ahead of him, drifted to place Gra between himself and the tank. Gra complied, but he held his hand to the side of his face, shielding his eyes as they passed the enclosure. Tek scoffed and muttered, “_Arachnophobes_,” under his breath, as if it were an insult of the highest order. Coming from him, it probably was.

The next room was comparatively normal, with plenty of natural light. In any other house, it would have functioned as a parlor. The only oddity was the birdcage sitting on the coffee table—large, but rarely used, by the look of it. Tek made a quick detour to transfer Sid from his shoulder to the cage, mumbling a few words of comfort and reassuring him that he’d return soon enough. The bird allowed Tek to run one spindly finger along his head and down his back, and then he hopped across the cage to peck at his food, leaving Tek to guide his guests deeper into his lair.

It was remarkable that a man who seemed like he could barely take care of himself, always sustaining some new injury or medical ailment, was able to maintain a veritable menagerie in his own house. What he lacked in human social skills and self-preservation instincts, he lavished on his animal wards instead, tending to each and every one of them with the meticulous obsession of both a fanatic and a professional.

The next room, for instance, was a dedicated balancing act. There were terrariums for various snakes and geckos on one side, and tanks for frogs and salamanders on the other. A solitary turtle was housed between the wet and dry halves of the room. He watched the newcomers filter around his tank as he slowly pulverized a spinach leaf in his wrinkly mouth.

Gra tried not to let the atmosphere get to him, but entering this room was like crossing into another climate zone, thick and swampy instead of comfortably dry. He’d never been good at handling humidity, even in a controlled environment. He had let Goh talk him into trying a sauna once, and only once. Gra had barely lasted five minutes before he alarmed the spa employees by clawing at the door and demanding to be released from their vaporous torture chamber.

So of course Tek would make them wait here before he opened the next door. “You need to have some notion of what to expect,” he explained. “He’s a large specimen—that’s one of the reasons I’m looking to rehome him. His size makes him difficult for me to handle. I surmise he’s not done growing yet, though I can’t be sure without knowing his exact age.”

“Is there anything you _can_ tell us about him?”

“He was a…sort of involuntary rescue,” Tek replied. “An unasked-for donation, really. His previous ‘caretakers’ didn’t bother to educate themselves on how to provide for him properly. As soon as it became apparent that he would actually require _effort_, and _time_, and a _shred_ of functioning intellect, they dropped him off with me. The resident herpetological miracle worker.”

Gra and Goh tried to listen attentively, to prove themselves to be more serious and intelligent than the previous owners. But Tek was a difficult person to get past the surface level of. He had a nasal voice, as if he were always _just_ on the cusp of recovering from some kind of sinus infection, paired with an unfortunate squishiness to the way he pronounced things, like he desperately needed to swallow. Gra couldn’t help wincing whenever one of Tek’s sentences was peppered with sibilants, for fear of being struck by projectile spit. It had never happened before, but that didn’t mean it never would.

Still, they absorbed most of what Tek told them, and when he finally offered to let them meet the specimen in question, they accepted. The tour of Tek’s living space hadn’t exactly endeared him to Goh, and even Gra was starting to feel antsy in the man’s company. But of the three of them, he _was_ the expert. If he had no reservations about putting them in the same room as this creature, then they had no reason not to trust his judgment.

Tek opened the door without ceremony and hobbled through it without looking back. Gra and Goh exchanged glances, and then, assuming that they were meant to follow him into the room—and after a brief, nonverbal fight over who would go first—they went inside.

It was another fairly normal space, with two wide windows to let in the sunlight, which they weren’t expecting. They also weren’t expecting the animal—a lizard roughly the size of a small dog, even without his tail—to be out and about rather than kept in a tank. Goh paused, and Gra took a half-step back, but the lizard was hardly disturbed by their presence. He looked up from his food dish for only a few seconds to acknowledge the group, then resumed eating as soon as he swallowed.

“Well,” Tek said. “Here he is.”

Goh leaned forward a few inches, scrutinizing the creature. “What…_is_ he?”

“A lizard.”

“No shit,” Gra said as Goh started to approach the lizard slowly—but not suspiciously slowly, to avoid making him nervous. “What _kind_ of lizard, is obviously what we want to know.”

“He’s an…iguana.”

“…that’s the best you’ve got?”

“Well, have _you_ ever seen one like this before?” Tek demanded. Gra looked at the lizard again and shrugged.

“I mean, no. But then, I didn’t exactly grow up in an area with iguanas running all over the place. Or scorpions. Or _tarantulas_.”

Tek scoffed again, a response which seemed to suit his voice, posture, and overall demeanor better than any other. “You’ve lived here _how_ many years now? Adapt already.”

“Well, _geez_,” Gra said, playing up a midwest accent that had never been all that strong to begin with. “I’m _soorry_ if it takes a while to adjust to the American Southwest, a.k.a. the Australia of the United States.”

“Florida…is the Australia…of the United…States…” Goh said, already halfway across the room.

“He’s not wrong,” Tek agreed.

“I’m not having this argument again,” Gra said, sizing up the lizard as Goh continued to shuffle slowly but steadily toward it. “Actually, speaking of Florida…is it possible—and I know this is a long shot, but I mean, he’s pretty big already. Is it _possible_ this guy could be…y’know, part gator or something?”

Tek stared at Gra for a moment before rolling his good eye. “I’m not even going to dignify that with a response,” he said. And then, caving to his own inability to let a stupid question go unanswered, he added, “_No_, he’s not part _alligator_, you _cretin_. Have you _ever_ seen a reptile before in your entire _life_?”

“I’m lookin’ at one right now,” Gra said as he met Tek’s eye. Tek gave him an obligatory sneer with no real ire behind it—of the few people he knew by name or by face, the only ones he remotely got along with were the ones he could trade insults with. By that measure, Gra was in the ninety-eighth percentile.

Goh, meanwhile, was more interested in making progress with the lizard than in vitriolic bonding with Tek. He lowered himself to the ground carefully, crouching before the iguana. It didn’t react at all and finished eating at its leisure, something both Gra and Goh could respect. Only when he was certain there were no more greens or strawberry slices left in the dish did he finally lift his head to see what Goh was all about. With his attention finally on the newcomers and his body more stretched out in the sunlight, they were able to see the finer details of his appearance. He wasn’t very colorful, not even on his dewlap, but the grayish-green tone of his skin was understated and aesthetically pleasing. Upon closer inspection, and in the right lighting, they could even see an interesting swirled pattern over his body and legs. There were a few spines running down his back, but not many, and they weren’t large.

“Missing his tail, as you can see,” Tek pointed out. “The previous owners said he dropped it once before—unsurprisingly. He dropped it again his first night here, and it hasn’t grown back. I’m starting to suspect that it won’t.”

Gra was barely listening. The lizard had waddled up to Goh by now, almost doglike in his sociability and catlike in his scrutiny. Goh reached two fingers out, and the lizard flicked his tongue at them.

“This flyer wasn’t my first advertisement, by the way,” Tek went on as the iguana started to circle Goh. He tried to stick his face into his pockets to see if there was anything edible in them, then nibbled at his sandals instead. “I’ve had him for a while now. I wanted to make sure I figured out a proper regimen before handing him off to anyone else. Most people aren’t cut out for reptile care, you know. They want a pet that’s _cute_, or _cuddly_, or just something to _fawn_ over. But I’ve seen those little puppets of yours—you’ve obviously got no other demands on your time or energy if you can create monstrosities of that caliber from scratch. Plus, for better or worse, you _are_ right across the street, so I suppose if you had any issues with him, you could always bring him back. But I’m looking for a permanent home for him, not a foster situation. If you’re serious about it, and willing to follow my instructions to the letter, then you can have him. Honestly, I can’t seem to _give_ this one away—”

“We’ll give you a hundred bucks,” Gra said. Tek sighed.

“That won’t be necessary.”

The iguana went back around to Goh’s front, and Goh scrunched down further to be on eye level with him. They stared at each other, the lizard blinking in that odd, reptilian way that was impossible to discern, and Goh looking absolutely enamored. He emoted as slowly as he spoke, and it was a joy for Gra to watch that gentle, mile-an-hour smile dawn on his face.

“Two hundred,” Gra said firmly.

“I said you can have him,” Tek replied, starting to sound genuinely annoyed. “Save your money. Your grocery bill is about to go up, as is your heating bill, your water bill, and—what kind of humidifier do you own?”

“We don’t.”

“Oh,” Tek said, with a deep, disapproving frown. “That won’t do. You’ll need to pick one up—at _least_ one—as soon as possible. I’ll give you a list of my preferred brands. Actually, I might have a spare lying around. It’s an outdated model, but it’ll do the job until you find something…”

He stole off to find a pad and pencil among the general detritus of his home, rummaging through drawers as if he’d never looked inside them before. The thought of buying a machine specifically to make their house _more_ humid almost put Gra off the idea entirely. But across the room, Goh had followed the iguana to a small, indoor climbing tree by the window, watching patiently as he tried to clamber up it. He struggled at first, but he didn’t seem to want to go too high. Once he’d made it to the first tier, he crawled to a hammock stretched between three posts and flopped down in it, one leg dangling lazily over the edge. “Aww…” Goh said as Gra joined him at his side. Gra nudged him with his elbow.

“Takes after you, huh?”

Goh didn’t even have a comeback. They stood there together, looking at the little sunbathing weirdo, knowing they were already hooked.

When Tek returned, his cane was hooked over his arm, freeing up both hands so he could scribble information and instructions on a pad of paper. He was so focused on this task that he almost walked directly into Gra, who put a hand on his shoulder to stop him. Tek looked up, confused, and then said, “Ah, yes,” as if he’d just remembered they were there. “Well, here are my preferred dehumidifier brands and models. He does like to sunbathe, as you’ve no doubt noticed, but too much dry air isn’t good, especially when he’s shedding. He’ll need at least one room, preferably two, with a higher humidity level. And you’ll need to regulate the temperature as well. I’ll type this all up in a comprehensive packet for you later today.”

“Sure,” Gra said, taking Tek’s notes and trying to make sense of his handwriting so he could keep up with the verbal instructions.

“He can go outdoors, but not until he’s acclimated to your house, and he’ll need to be in an enclosed or supervised area at all times. I’ve seen birds out here pick fights with animals his size and win, and he’s an easy target without his tail. However, he should be mostly satisfied with indoor life, as long as you provide a suitable habitat for him. He’ll also need to adhere to a specific diet—again, I’ll write all this down. Lists of approved foods, daily mineral intake and nutritional needs, and so on. And his meals must be served in pieces small enough for him to swallow whole, as iguanas don’t chew their food.”

This time, Goh nudged Gra. “Takes…after…_you_…”

“He also likes to swim,” Tek went on, ignoring the brief elbow duel that took place between his guests. “Of course, he can’t really without his tail to provide a means of propulsion. He can still go in water, if it’s shallow. Wading depth only. Start with a bathtub first to see how he fares. Eventually, he can move up to a…kiddie pool,” Tek said reluctantly, and with more disdain than anyone should have been able to infuse into such a harmless pair of words. It was as if the very idea that one of his precious specimens might share anything with human offspring offended him to his core.

“We’ll see what we can come up with,” Gra said. Tek nodded and continued to walk them through the process of care. He covered the basics first, and that part alone took nearly an hour, with Tek outlining everything in meticulous detail and making Goh and Gra repeat information back to him at random, just to prove they were listening.

Once they passed the oral exam to Tek’s satisfaction, he went to the climbing tree, where the iguana had woken up from his nap in the sun and was stretching his legs. “Up with you,” Tek said in a straightforward manner, leaning his cane against the wall and reaching down to grab the lizard. He wasn’t a lightweight animal, and there was a brief scramble as he tried to turn around so he could latch onto Tek’s limbs with all four feet—an arboreal instinct, and probably an extra security measure for an animal whose balance was thrown off already by his lack of tail. Tek grunted, shifting on his prosthetic foot and recentering his own balance while the iguana squirmed in his grasp.

“Oop, I gotcha,” Gra said, automatically reaching out to steady him, but Tek shrugged him off.

“I’m fine,” he said, his voice a little more snappish than Gra expected. “Don’t _help_, just _learn_. You’re going to pick him up yourself in a few minutes. Watch what I’m doing so you'll know how to handle him correctly.”

Gra withdrew his hands and stepped back again, fighting the urge to prevent what looked like a disaster in the making as Tek and the iguana continued to try and position themselves. But after just a few more seconds, they were situated comfortably: Tek holding the lizard up with both hands, and the lizard holding onto Tek’s forearms with all four feet. Both of them looked perfectly at ease now that they’d found their balance, and the iguana surveyed the room with bland curiosity from his new vantage point, seeming to enjoy the height.

Tek invited Gra and Goh closer, to show them how he was holding the iguana: firmly, not too close to his chest, and with a hand splayed between each set of legs. When they seemed to have it memorized, Tek put the iguana back down on the floor, let him have five minutes to reorient himself, and then began the hands-on education process.

It was a humbling experience for both Gra and Goh. At first, they’d thought Tek had trouble holding the iguana because of his prosthetics, seeing the initial struggle as a sign that something was going wrong. When each of them tried to pick up the iguana and found themselves faced with that same struggle, they backed off immediately, putting him down on the floor again.

Tek was quick to scold them. “_Patience_,” he said, tetchy as ever. “And _confidence_. I showed you exactly what to do—it’s not complicated. So _do_ it, and let him handle sorting himself out.”

After giving themselves and the iguana a few minutes to cool off and soothe their nerves, Goh stooped down to try again. The first couple of times he’d tried to pick up the iguana, it had seemed to sense his inexperience, writhing fiercely out of Goh’s grasp before it could be dropped. This time, Goh moved slowly but without hesitation, keeping his hands firm and adjusting them only as much as necessary. Everything else was up to the iguana, and once he realized this, he obligingly clung to Goh’s arms with his claws, hoisting himself up and looking around the room as he had before. His gaze lingered on Tek, as if he were trying to figure out how he had gotten up so high, if not with the help of his usual caretaker.

Gra had a similar success when it was his turn. The iguana seemed wary of resting its weight on his thinner arms, but soon it was clinging like a scaly koala, blinking contentedly. “Very good,” Tek said, and although his tone sounded indifferent, Gra and Goh took it as a wholehearted compliment. Neither one of them would have admitted it, not even to each other, but the more Tek had snapped at them or criticized their technique, the more they found themselves vying for his approval. He wasn’t known for handing out compliments, or even encouragements, so a generically positive remark from him was as good as effusive praise.

“All right, then,” Gra said, carefully lowering the iguana back to the floor. “Think we’ve got a handle on…well, handling him. Anything else we should know for now?”

“…well…once he’s comfortable and situated at your house, you could take him for short walks around the neighborhood, if you were so inclined. Not when it’s too bright out, but not when it’s too cold, either.”

“…how…do we…?”

“He’s leash-trained. Well, harness-trained, technically.”

Gra stared at Tek, then at the iguana. “You trained him to wear a harness?”

“No. He was trained when I got him.”

“…that raises more questions than it answers, y’know.”

Tek shrugged. “Ehh…I know.”

They stayed for a while longer, though they were eager to get the iguana back to their own house and start settling him in. Tek was eager for them to leave as well; they’d been in his home for a few hours straight now, which was the longest social visit he’d had in…forever, as far as he could remember. After reviewing the key points of care one more time, just to make sure the information stuck, Tek was ready to send them off. He finished gathering the basic care supplies into a box he’d found, and then he went back to the climbing tree, where the iguana was sunbathing again. “Come along now, Enzo.”

Goh furrowed his brow, somewhat judgmentally. “…En…zo?”

“His previous—_urgh_—owners named him ‘Lorenzo,’ for whatever reason,” Tek said, managing to drag the lizard out of the hammock despite his truly impressive display of passive resistance. Once he was back on the floor, however, Tek made quick work of putting on his harness, for a man with only one fully articulate hand. “Too polysyllabic for a reptile,” he went on, “or any animal, for that matter. I’ve been calling him ‘Enzo’ for short.”

Gra and Goh glanced at each other. “We’ll…call him…”

“Lore,” Gra finished for him, not cutting Goh off so much as affirming that they were on the same wavelength.

“Lo—yeah…” Goh said anyway. Tek shrugged again.

“Suit yourselves. He won’t mind the difference, I’m sure. Doesn’t seem to care about much except eating, napping, and occasionally trying to get underfoot like the nuisance he is.”

“He’s wonderful,” Gra agreed, accepting the leash from Tek after he clipped it onto the harness. He handed it to Goh, who was looking at Lore with hearts in his eyes. Lore looked curious, nipping at the leash before he started waddling on ahead, undoubtedly eager to get out of this room and explore the rest of the world. Tek snorted.

“I don’t know if I’d go that far.”

“He’s _wonderful_,” Gra insisted as he followed Tek, who was following Goh, who was following Lore. “Just…_wonderful_.”

* * *

After Gra promised to return later for the humidifier, he and Goh began the trek back to their house. Tek oversaw the first leg of their journey from his doorway. He maintained an imperious sort of air as long as he stayed on his home turf, but he wasn’t above snickering as he watched the pair try to figure out exactly how to walk an iguana. Once they made it halfway across the cul-de-sac, they seemed to fall into step. Gra gave Tek a thumbs-up to signify that they’d gotten the hang of it, and Tek nodded and shut the door again, drawing back into his house like a hermit crab into its shell.

After that, it took them about fifteen minutes just to reach their driveway, because Lore seemed to think that this was the perfect time to go adventuring. Gra went on ahead to start setting up the supplies and make their home suitable for a non-mammal companion, while Goh patiently tried to redirect Lore to the house. When they finally arrived, and when Lore finally seemed to realize that their journey had a destination, his curiosity was piqued even further, but he proceeded with caution. Gra had blocked off the hallway and placed Lore’s familiar items—his food and water dishes, and a medium-sized dog bed—in the family room, to help him acclimate to his new home without overwhelming him.

Overwhelming him turned out to be low on their list of worries. Lore was inquisitive to the point of accidental destructiveness. He fell somewhere between the size of an average cat and an average dog, and everything in the house seemed to be either too big or too small for him to interact with comfortably. His claws got caught on an afghan, he knocked a few trinkets off the coffee table when he tried (and failed) to climb on top of it, and he managed to push one of the lower kitchen cabinets open with his snout. He made it halfway inside before Gra and Goh realized, though the ensuing clatter of pots and pans sent them running to fetch him.

Once he’d had a chance to learn the floor plan, however, Lore had very few issues navigating the one-story house. He had familiarized himself with nearly every room by the time Tek gave them a call. Gra was the one who spoke to him, given that he was much more familiar with their irascible neighbor, and considering Goh’s natural talking speed wasn’t conducive to phone calls, especially with someone as impatient as Tek. Besides, Goh had disapproved of the decision to give Tek their home number in the first place.

“Says he found the humidifier,” Gra relayed as he hung up the phone. “Plus a few more pet toys in the basement, if we want ‘em.”

“His whole _house_…is an above-ground…basement…” Goh said. Gra chuckled, but he made a point to remind Goh that Tek was as helpful as he was bizarre. Once he picked up the supplies, they got to work converting their spare room into a reptilian paradise. They didn’t have much to offer their new pet at the moment, aside from some rubber balls Tek had given them, which Lore nudged around for about three minute before growing bored. The room itself was fairly bare for now, but Gra set up the humidifier while Goh affixed the thermometer and hygrometer to the wall.

By dinnertime, Lore had mostly sated his hunger for exploration, and was ready to sate a more literal hunger. He dined on the kitchen floor, munching on a homemade salad while Gra and Goh watched from the table with unhidden delight. When it was time to go to sleep, they opted to bring his dog bed into their room, to ease any potential separation anxiety. Gra took great pains to find just the right spot for Lore, while Lore wriggled under their bed and seemed to settle down there for the night. After a fruitless attempt to coax him back out, Gra sighed and slid his dog bed halfway under their own.

“Good enough for now,” he said as he went to the bathroom to brush his teeth. When he hopped into bed, Goh looked deep in contemplation. “What’s up?”

“…this…is going to put…a crimp…in our…love life…”

“First of all, how dare you suggest that every part of our life isn’t full of love. Secondly…” Gra trailed off, seeming to accept Goh’s point the more he tried to come up with a rebuttal. “…it’s an adjustment period,” he finally said, hitting the lights and scooting down under the covers while Goh followed suit with only light grumbling. “We’ll figure this all out eventually.”

* * *

The following morning, after being woken up by a twelve-pound lizard trying to climb onto his chest, Goh decided that his top priority for the day would be constructing Lore’s new indoor treehouse. He gathered all the spare wood and rope and branches from the shed and brought them inside. While he took inventory of their available supplies and sketched out a rough blueprint, Lore kept him company, checking out the raw materials for himself and seeming to approve of them, as much as a lizard could. But when Goh started sawing and hammering, Lore fled the room, his ears too sensitive to handle the noise. Gra shut the door to both give Lore some reprieve and to let Goh work without interruption. And, if he were being honest, to build suspense for a proper unveiling of the treehouse later.

Normally, Gra would have offered to help, but his experience as a handyman was limited to some last-minute set repairs during a particularly disastrous stage production about twenty years ago. And even then, all he’d managed to accomplish was affixing _himself_ to the background via one fashionable but loosely-knotted scarf, and one hot glue gun.

So, he steered clear of the construction zone for now and took their reptilian friend into the bathroom instead, to test his “sea legs.” Lore waded back and forth in the bathtub for a bit, feeling the water swish around his body, not seeming to either enjoy or mind it to any particular degree. At one point, he simply stopped and stared up at Gra, who had no idea what he was trying to communicate to him—or if he was trying to communicate anything at all. Nevertheless, he chose to interpret Lore’s inscrutable stillness and staring as an attempted bonding moment.

When Gra decided that Lore had been in there long enough for his first bath, Lore respectfully disagreed. He went limp when Gra tried to lift him, “playing dead” as he had when Tek struggled to pull him off the hammock. Luckily, Gra preferred to use brains over brawn, and he soon lured Lore to the edge of the bathtub with a few strategically placed mango slices. When Lore stood on his hind legs to gobble them up, Gra wrapped his arms around his belly and successfully heaved him out of the tub.

Two minutes later, Gra was standing on an old beach towel and shuffling through the house, mopping up the trail of water Lore had left in his wake as he tried to hunt down the rest of the mango. As Gra passed the spare room, he rapped his knuckles on the door and said, “How’s it comin’ along?”

He heard a sigh and a grunt as Goh got to his feet. A few seconds later, the door opened, releasing a billow of humid air into the hall. “Shower…time…” was all Goh said, drenched in sweat and ambling off to the bathroom.

“Ooh…guess now’s not the best time to tell you that the lizard was in the tub for, like, forty minutes, huh?”

Goh barely paused. He simply sighed again and added, “I’ll wear…flip flops…”

While he made his way down the hall, Gra stepped inside to check out his handiwork. It was rustic, with real tree branches and coils of rope to provide grip, but the end result was incredibly professional-looking. Gra nudged the base with his foot and tried shaking some of the fixtures gently, to test their integrity, and they held fast with little to no wobbling. The branches were not only angled for climbing, but also for ideal lizard lounging and sunbathing. And the best part: a small, sturdy hammock, close enough to the ground to prevent injury in case of falling, but high enough to satisfy any arboreal urges.

When Lore crept in to see what all the fuss was about, Gra managed to convince him to give it a test run. By the time Goh emerged from the bathroom, still drying his hair and ears with a towel, both Gra and Lore were fully engrossed in exploring the treehouse. “Aww…” Goh said, watching them fondly. “Do you…want me…to make you one…too…?”

“I know you’re being sarcastic,” Gra said, “but yes. Yes I would.”

Once Lore had inspected the treehouse to his satisfaction, both he and Goh took a well-deserved afternoon nap. Gra, on the other hand, took his overdue daily jog. It was odd to do his laps at midday instead of dawn, but the upside was that there were more people out and about, leaving old items on the sidewalk for the garbage men to pick up. It took no persuading at all for one neighbor to let Gra take an old, plastic kiddie pool off his hands. It was an awkward jog back to the house, carrying the thing on his back like a turtle with a very cheap, very tacky, and not very aerodynamic shell. But he made it, delivering the surprise to the backyard while Goh got out of bed to join him.

After blasting it with the hose and patching up the cracks with duct tape, they agreed that it was perfectly suitable for use by a lizard. They brought Lore outside to assess it for himself, letting him circle the perimeter while Gra and Goh argued over how much water constituted “wading depth.” Gra eventually had to go back inside to find a ruler just to settle the matter. When they finally settled on the proper amount of water, tipping some out of the pool and refilling it as needed, they stood there with damp feet and a satisfied air at a job, well, done.

“All right, Lore, you’d better use this thing after all that,” Gra said, putting his hands on his hips as he glanced around. “…Lore?” He circled the pool once, then twice. “…oh no.”

“We…_lost_…him,” Goh said in disbelief. It seemed impossible for Lore to have gotten out of their completely fenced-in backyard, but Gra was convinced he’d made a break for it.

For the next few minutes, they tore through the yard, Gra pointlessly calling Lore’s name while Goh lifted up various chairs and other items to check underneath them. Finally, they checked the rock pile in the corner that they’d never quite gotten around to fixing up. And there was Lore, curled up among the stones, blending in perfectly with the texture and sandy gray color of his skin. He was sleeping soundly, blissfully unaware of the chaos he had accidentally caused.

Gra and Goh decided to let him rest for a while longer, not so much out of politeness as to come down from their conjoined panic attack. After half an hour and a glass of lemonade each, they nudged Lore awake and told him it was pool time. He didn’t do much more than wade around a bit, although he did seem to like it at least as much as the bathtub.

He added a nice presence to their home, overall. He wasn’t quite as sociable as a dog or cat, but he seemed to enjoy their company well enough. However, there were still a few alarming incidents here and there. Once, when Gra got up in the middle of the night for some water, he returned just in time to see a massive shape crawling out from under the bed, shuffling toward him in the dark. After a frankly embarrassing freak-out that sent Gra fleeing back down the hall, Goh woke up, turned on the lights, saw Lore sitting in the middle of the room, and proceeded to just about die laughing when he pieced together what had happened. When Gra had had a chance to calm down, he reluctantly allowed himself to be led out of the kitchen and back to bed, bundling up under the covers while Goh sent Lore to his pillow on the floor again.

The next morning, Gra had the decency to admit that the incident _had_ been pretty funny, though he also suggested that maybe it was time to start phasing Lore’s bed out from under their own. Perhaps into the room that they had spent so much time and work and money on converting into a suitably reptilian habitat.

But as the days went on, incidents like that were few and far between. By the end of their first week together, and with only a handful of check-in calls from Tek, all three of them were comfortably settled into their new routine.

* * *

One evening, Gra came home with an armful of groceries, pointedly announcing both his arrival and the paper bag full of dinner ingredients that he wouldn’t mind a little help preparing. When he got no response, he dropped everything off in the kitchen, rolling his shoulder as he went through the house. He made it all the way to the bedroom without finding anybody, until he went to the sliding glass door and looked out into the yard.

Goh was napping in their hammock, one arm hanging heavily off the side, the backs of his fingers brushing the ground. His other hand rested on top of Lore, holding him safely where he lay sprawled across Goh’s chest and stomach. They were fast asleep, Lore rising and falling with Goh’s deep, gentle breaths. Each of them was like a warming stone for the other as they napped together in a circle of late-day sunlight.

Gra watched them for a few long minutes before going back to the kitchen to get dinner started. The rice was almost done simmering by the time the other two joined him. Lore was leading the way, swinging his feet out and placing them down one in front of the other, the rest of his body keeping up in a side-to-side motion. There was an eager little bounce in his step as he trod into the kitchen to scarf down his usual bowl of greens, this time decorated with an assortment of berries. Goh followed more slowly, yawning and rubbing his eyes, blinking in the dim light. He paused cooperatively before opening the fridge so Gra could kiss his forehead, still warm from the setting sun.

They sat on the couch: Gra at one end, Goh in the middle, and Lore on the third cushion. He’d already taken a button right off the arm with his claws, but it was an old sofa. A few more missing buttons and fraying threads weren’t going to hurt.

Lore lay on his side while Gra and Goh had their dinner, and soon, he was asleep again. They ate quietly and watched as his feet started to twitch, his claws curling and stretching intermittently. Goh scooped up some rice and squash together, chewing thoughtfully and swallowing before he said, “So…are we…the weirdest neighbors…now…?”

Gra took another look at their gigantic, still growing, still unidentified iguana, snoozing on the end of the couch even though a perfectly good dog bed was waiting for him on the floor. He thought about how there was now an entire segment of their grocery list dedicated to Lore’s meals. How he had really wanted raspberries with his breakfast that morning, but the carton had been almost empty, so he’d dumped the few that remained into Lore’s dish instead. How he was going to get up early tomorrow for his usual sunrise jog, and then go out again mid-afternoon to take Lore on a walk around the neighborhood, harness and all. How he would then supervise him for his daily wading session, like a parent watching their child play in an old pink-and-green kiddie pool in the backyard.

Goh reached out and ran his finger along Lore’s head, fiddling fondly with his spines, and Gra sighed. “…we’re getting there.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn’t a super realistic representation of pet care, especially reptile care, but nothing in this story is all that realistic, so.
> 
> Shout-out to Oblitatron and Lucy300, for two entirely separate comments that gave me the inspiration for this chapter. (Specifically for skekTek, the Unfriendly Neighborhood Spider Man.)


	6. Heretics

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter alone increased the fic length by ~66% and I _still_ feel like I half-assed it, but whatever! I'm tired of trying to edit this thing down.

Some days, Gra lamented the fact that he and Goh lived at different speeds. When Gra wanted to hang out and do something fun, Goh was often in the middle of a nap. And when Goh was in one of his adventurous moods, Gra had already worn himself out with errands and was ready to just stay home and relax. It was a borderline miracle that their meals overlapped, though that was mostly thanks to the fact that Goh was always in the mood to eat.

Still, on days like this, their staggered routines were a blessing. Gra was a social creature—gratingly so, at times—but even he needed some solo activities. His morning run helped him stay limber, provided a cornerstone to base his schedule around, and kept his brain from buzzing for an hour or two.

Plus, the sunrise was dazzling.

Today’s jog was one of the better ones—even the garbage trucks that Gra had to pass by couldn’t dampen his mood. When he returned to the cul-de-sac, he made a quick detour to roll Tek’s trash and recycling bins back up his driveway. Gra was more likely to receive a light scolding for trespassing than a thank-you, but more likely than either of those was for his good deed to go unacknowledged. With Tek, that was usually the preferred response.

Gra rolled his shoulders as he approached his own driveway, pinching his shirt to pull it off his back, where it had clung to the thin layer of sweat. He picked up the lid from the sidewalk and placed it on his trash can, then took a few minutes to cool down from his run. He twisted left and right, reached high above his head, and leaned from one leg to the other. It was a beautiful day already, and it looked like it was only going to get better. Lore would certainly enjoy his wade in the kiddie pool. Maybe Goh would even join them for a walk around the neighborhood.

Gra shook his head, smiling to himself. Of all the ways for a pet iguana change their lives, encouraging Goh to be more active was not one he would have ever seen coming.

With a tired but content sigh, Gra turned to take the empty trash cans inside. And when he looked up at his house, he stumbled back, knocking the cans over with a series of metallic clangs and clatters not at all suitable for this hour of the morning. Gra jumped at the noise, his pulse skyrocketing as Mal watched impassively from his perch on the edge of the roof, looming above the front door like a bad omen.

“Holy fucking mother of Jesus _Christ_, oh my _god_, Mal,” Gra said with one shallow breath, pressing his hand over his heart.

“You’ve got some loose tiles up here, you know,” Mal replied. He shifted his foot on the rooftop to demonstrate.

“Oh?” Gra said, his voice straining higher than he would have liked. “Were they loose before you _stood on them_?”

Mal gave him an admonishing look—a bold choice for a man who had not only invited himself onto someone else’s property, but had decided to stake out its highest point and lie in wait like an ambush predator. “You really need a security system. Or at least some kind of neighborhood crime watch.”

“Yeah, you’re tellin’ me,” Gra said as he bent over to right the trash cans.

“I’m serious. I’ve been up here for almost two hours. You’re lucky I’m not a burglar. Casing your house would take five minutes for someone who has even half an idea what they’re doing.”

Gra picked up the trash lid and held it in his hands, wondering if he was still a good enough shot to bean Mal in the head with it. But he quickly recalled all those get-togethers back in the day, how any ball or frisbee or stick that was thrown in Mal’s direction got caught and thrown back twice as hard. It had never seemed like a particularly aggressive or, despite his name, malicious act. Just a very consistent and frankly effective survival mechanism.

Gra set the lid back on the trash can, forcing himself to behave, because _someone_ had to be normal during these impromptu family reunions. He was just about to tell Mal that he’d be right back with the ladder, but Mal, true to form, was already swinging down from the roof on his own. He landed lightly for someone of his height and build. Gra was spry for his age, to be fair, but it had always been in a lanky sort of way. Mal, on the other hand, seemed to be made of nothing but lean muscle and bone.

He dusted his hands on his pants—black, of course, all black, even in the desert—and waited for Gra to speak. He cut a significantly less intimidating figure now that he’d left his perch, not quite as portentous as he stood in the middle of a suburban cul-de-sac, on a walkway lined with well-tended and colorful succulents.

“So…what brings you by this time?” Gra asked, as conversationally as he could. Mal put his hands in his pockets and shrugged.

“Nothing in particular. I was passing through, thought I’d say hi.” Gra raised his eyebrow, exuding skepticism. Mal scuffed his boot on the walkway and added, “And I could use a place to crash for the night.”

Gra sighed. Of course he could. “Well, I gotta ask the usual questions, then. Are the police after you?”

“_No_,” Mal said. “For fuck’s sake, you get arrested _one time_—”

“All _right_,” Gra said, shutting him up before he could launch into that old rant again. “Any drugs?”

“Yeah, but I’m not sharing.” When Gra gave him an uncharacteristically stern look, Mal sighed and removed his hands from his pockets, turning them out in the process. It was a pointless display—one pair of pockets in an outfit that was utterly festooned with them—but it seemed to satisfy Gra.

“All right,” he said again as Mal stuffed his pockets back into place. “Well…our spare room’s not really free at the moment. You cool with taking the couch?”

“Of course. Slept in worse places. Hell, I’ve spent the night in a tree before.”

“Why am I not surprised?” Gra muttered as he picked up the trash barrel. Mal took the recycling bin for him, and when they reached the garage, Gra said, “Wait. ‘In a tree’ as in, _up_ in a tree? Or, like…_inside_ a tree?”

Mal paused to think it over while Gra opened the door. “Huh. Both.”

“…what is _wrong_ with you? For real.”

“Wasn’t too bad,” Mal said, following Gra inside and putting the recycling bin in its appointed place. “Like sleeping in an upright coffin.”

“…just take the couch, Mal,” Gra said, his younger cousin’s presence already sapping away what little energy he’d gained from his jog. Mal shrugged again, as if none of it made a difference to him. As if he were simply humoring Gra’s request instead of crashing into his life out of the clear blue sky.

_Again_.

* * *

They entered the house quietly—second nature for Mal, but very deliberate for Gra. Mal inspected the family room, as he did every time he came over. Gra never took it personally. He assumed this was something Mal did at every location, scoping out potential hazards, exit routes, and the like. If he formed any opinions about the interior decorating, he was either tactful enough or apathetic enough to keep it to himself.

He did, however, nod at the small, circular bed on the floor. “Got a dog?” he asked, noting the leash and harness on a nearby shelf.

“Yep,” Gra said as he went to the kitchen. He crouched by the cabinets and started removing cookware like a man on an archaeological dig, carefully lifting and tilting the various pans so none of them knocked or scraped against each other. It was probably overkill; Goh could sleep through just about anything. He’d slept through an earthquake on more than one occasion. But Gra knew better than to test his luck. Mal was speaking softer than usual, too—as soft as he could, anyway. His voice went low more than it went quiet, a guttural growl compared to Gra’s signature squawk. But they did their best.

“You hungry?” Gra asked, holding up a pan. Mal nodded, trying to seem less eager than he was. He could last for days on little to no food, but when he finally indulged, he was insatiable.

After a few minutes of cooking, when the bacon was conveniently at its noisiest and most sizzly, Gra heard the telltale sounds of Goh hauling himself out of bed. He paused, the spatula hovering just over the eggs, while he and Mal listened carefully. There was a deep, brief clearing of the throat, a slow shuffle of footsteps out into the hall, and then the welcome sound of the bathroom door closing and the shower handle turning, followed by a rush of water. Gra relaxed and flipped the eggs, tending to the bacon next as Mal took a seat at the table.

When everything was ready, Gra poured Mal a glass of orange juice and sat with him, scarfing down a balanced diet of eggs, whole grain toast, and fresh fruit. He kept the bacon close by, and when Mal made a grab for it, Gra pulled it away and pointed at his untouched toast and hash browns. “No seconds till you clear your plate.” He resented having to treat Mal like a child, but it seemed fitting, given that his dietary preferences apparently hadn’t evolved since childhood. Most of their cousins—Gra included—had needed frequent reminders to eat their vegetables. Mal was the only person Gra had ever met who needed to be reminded to eat his carbs.

Mal gave him a disbelieving look, but when Gra nudged his plate insistently, he rolled his eyes and obeyed, soaking the toast in residual egg yolk and bacon grease to make it more palatable. When he finished, he spread his hands, sarcastically asking for Gra’s approval, and Gra let him raid the rest of the bacon.

While Mal was at work on his second course, and pacified by the first one, Gra decided to probe a little further. “So, I know I already asked, but I didn’t _really_ get an answer.”

Mal grunted in acknowledgement as he split open a particularly runny egg and used it to dress his hash browns, discovering that he wasn’t totally opposed to carbs as long as they were slathered in fatty protein. Gra took a sip of coffee and tried to sound casual, which was a tactic that had never, in his entire life, worked. “What brings you by this time?”

“Passing through,” Mal said, giving the repetitive question a repetitive answer.

“Okay, but honestly, though. No trouble with the police? Or any kind of law enforcement?”

“Nope.”

“You don’t have, like…a stalker, or something, do you?”

Mal actually laughed before taking a deep swig of orange juice. “No,” he said, sounding amused by the idea. “And if I did, I think I could handle throwing them off my trail.”

“…family issues?”

Mal glanced up from his food, giving Gra a look that was drenched in both judgment and a kind of wry commiseration. “What do _you_ think?”

Gra raised his hand, silently agreeing to drop the topic, at least for now. He finished his coffee and let Mal eat the rest of his breakfast—and the remains of his own—in peace.

While Gra was at the sink, slotting plates and silverware into the dishwasher and letting the pans soak, they finally heard the bathroom door open. Mal sat as still and quietly as he could, picking crumbs off his placemat in a subconscious attempt to look useful, as slow, plodding footsteps came down the hall.

“…bacon?” Goh asked, sounding pleased. Gra steeled himself and tapped into his best early-morning cheerful voice.

“Yep!” he said, with so much forced brightness that Mal flinched in surprise. Gra held out a hand quickly to apologize, trying to tone it down.

“What’s the…occasion…?”

“Well, funny you should ask. We’ve got a guest this morning,” Gra said as Goh appeared in the kitchen doorway, a delighted smile on his face.

“Oh…?” he said, glancing at the table. When he laid eyes on their guest, he repeated, “Oh…” though, to his credit, his smile barely wavered. Gra gestured to Mal with the spatula he’d been rinsing.

“It’s Mal,” he said—helpfully, but unnecessarily. Mal waved at Goh, with little more than a stiff raise of his hand. Goh nodded once, and then, still smiling that blank smile, he turned around and went right back down the hall.

Gra sighed and put the spatula in the sink, patting Mal’s shoulder as he walked behind him to follow Goh. “Just sit tight,” he said. “I’ll talk to him.”

While the two of them went to their room to hash things out, Mal continued to pluck toast crumbs out of the placemat fibers, then brushed his hands off and left the table when he couldn’t sit still any longer. He wandered into the family room again, inspecting the bookshelves and various knick-knacks that littered the side tables and windowsills. When he’d done a full sweep of the room, he took a seat on the couch, his backpack in easy reach between his feet in case he needed to make a quick escape after all.

Around fifteen minutes later, Gra returned, with Goh reluctantly but loyally in tow. “All right!” he said, with the same forced brightness as before. “We’re all set. Mal, you can spend the night on the couch if you want. Will you be here for dinner? We’re gonna have a big one tonight, plenty to go around.”

“Sure,” Mal said, rising to his feet. With that settled, Gra went back to the kitchen to finish cleaning, making sure he put the kettle on and got some of Goh’s favorite tea out. While Goh went back the way he’d come, Mal lingered awkwardly at the end of the hallway. His social instincts told him to leave well enough alone and not push his luck, but his primal instincts told him not to let the one person who disliked him here out of his sight for too long.

“I, uh,” he began, shrugging one shoulder back toward the family room, where the bed and harness lay. “I noticed you’ve got a dog now?”

“Hmm.”

“Looks small,” he went on, as Goh approached their spare room. “What breed is it?”

Goh opened the door and stood aside, and Mal leaned forward, realizing that he was about to discover the answer for himself. And a moment later, out came Lore. Mal actually took a step back in surprise as he waddled past, flinging each scaly foot out to the side in rotation, his sidewinding dinosaur gait carrying him to the kitchen for his overdue breakfast.

“We’re not…sure…” Goh replied. Mal watched the iguana circle the room, then glanced at Goh again, who was staring straight at him, daring him to point out the obvious. He turned to Gra next, who was chuckling at the sink, offering no help. Mal looked at the creature again: a lumpy, tailless thing trotting around the kitchen, his little claws clicking on the tile, his tongue flicking out every so often in anticipation of food.

“…right,” Mal said, resigning himself to the fact that at least one of these old loons had finally started to go senile. He wasn’t sure which one it was, but as he set his bag up beside the couch, he supposed he had the rest of the day to figure it out.

* * *

Against all odds, the four of them had a fairly pleasant afternoon. Mal and Lore spent a few minutes trying to figure out what to make of each other, and neither one seemed to come to any sort of conclusion. Later, when Mal asked if he could do a load of laundry while he was staying over, Goh insisted that doing laundry was a _condition_ of Mal staying over. Mal was trying to think of a suitable comeback when Gra took care of it for him, giving Goh’s shoulder a light whack and saying, “C’mon. Everyone be polite. At least until dinner.”

When Mal’s clothes finished their second trip through the washing machine, Goh put them into the dryer rather than taking them out to the clothesline. Fresh air was enough for his and Gra’s laundry, but Mal’s clothes called for the power of not one, but two dryer sheets to counteract the grime.

Besides, Gra and Mal were in the backyard, feeding Mal’s near-constant desire to be outdoors. They were catching up, sharing funny stories from the past few years and reminiscing about their childhoods. Goh didn’t go out of his way to give them space, but he didn’t want to eavesdrop, either. Still, whenever he passed an open window, he slowed down even more than usual. He wasn’t Mal’s biggest fan, and if it were solely up to him, he wouldn’t be letting the man flop his grungy self down on their couch for the night. But he had to admit, it was nice to hear someone else make Gra laugh for a change.

When it was time for Lore’s walk, Gra invited Mal to tag along. Mal declined as he watched Gra suit the iguana up in his harness, clearly finding the entire idea absurd. Gra shrugged, figuring it was about time for them to get a break from each other’s company, anyway. He told Mal to make himself at home, then set off with Lore and Goh at his side, feeling an awful lot like the farmer taking the chicken and seed across the river, leaving the fox behind.

For all his initial grumbling and reluctance to put on sandals, the exercise did seem to improve Goh’s mood. When they returned to the house, he even put Mal’s dry clothes in the laundry basket and brought them out to the family room for him. “Mal?” he called as he went down the hallway, peering into rooms to see where he’d gone. “Your laundry’s…done…”

No answer, and no Mal. Goh frowned. As much as he’d disliked finding Mal in his house this morning, he liked _not_ being able to find Mal infinitely less. Besides, some petty part of him wanted to see Mal’s reaction to the fresh laundry before it cooled, to see if he could get him to admit that the soft smell of detergent was better than scrubbing his clothes in a cold river, or beating the dirt off them with a stick, or whatever his usual method was.

“Hey,” Goh said as he returned to the kitchen, where Gra was fixing a midday snack for himself and Lore. “Where’d he…go?”

“Who, Mal? Nowhere, I think.” Gra set Lore’s food dish down and wiped his hands on his pants, searching the house along the same route Goh had just taken. “Mal? Where’dja go?”

They looked around some more, Gra poking his head into various rooms while Goh checked under the bed and inside the linen closet and kitchen cabinets. “Well, he can’t’ve left,” Gra concluded, gesturing to Mal’s bag, still propped up against the side of the couch. “Maybe he went for a run. You know he doesn’t like to stay in one place too long.”

Goh shrugged, and he and Gra went back to their regularly scheduled afternoon activities, which involved sitting in the family room, having a light snack, reading, and firmly refusing to worry about Mal. Twenty minutes later, both of them paused, distracted by a noise overhead. They listened to the soft scratching and scuffling sounds for a few seconds, then jumped when they heard a sharp bang. Goh looked at Gra in alarm, and Gra raised his eyebrows as the sound continued. He didn’t get up, though, and after a minute, his surprise melted into comprehension.

“Ah.” He pointed up at the ceiling. “Loose tiles.”

“Ah…” Goh replied, and they went back to snacking and reading, leaving Mal to patch up their roof in peace like the world’s most ominous handyman.

* * *

By dinnertime, they had all more or less acclimated to each other’s weirdness. Discussion flowed a little more easily, though Goh still mostly sat it out. Gra did a truly valiant job trying to make it all seem normal, asking Mal the typical questions about work and hobbies. Mal gave some sarcastic answers, but for the most part, he was an agreeable enough conversationalist. He did peel into a brief rant about living in the city, and how he was going to avoid doing _that_ again for as long as he could afford to.

“People everywhere, it’s a nightmare,” he grumbled, scraping up as much food as his spoon could hold and shoveling it into his mouth as if it were the last meal he would ever get. Goh refrained from commenting on his lack of manners and the subsequent scattering of dinner all over the tabletop. It was bad enough when Gra did it.

“Y’know, if you had a more stable situation, you wouldn’t need to rely on all those people you hate so much,” Gra countered. Mal waved him off. “I’m serious. If you just buckled down, you could’ve gotten your own place by now, instead of crashing with whoever’s willing to take you in. World’s not full of pushovers like us.”

“Thanks, Dad,” Mal said, then eased back a bit when Gra gave him a warning look. “It’s fine, mostly. Life’s going well, but I reserve the right to complain about the parts that aren’t perfect—same as you. Hell, since I’ve been here, you’ve already gotten me up to speed on your bad water pressure, the grocery bills for your new roommate—”

“Could someone…pass…the pepper…?”

“—_and_ your tiff with City Council about the pothole on Main Street,” Mal concluded, handing the pepper shaker to Goh. He sprinkled it liberally over his food while Gra rolled his eyes at Mal.

“Yeah, sure. All that stuff’s definitely on the same level as not knowing _where you’re gonna live_ for the next few months. If it were me, I’d just suck it up and stay in the city at this point.”

“And if it were _me_, I’d just go out in the middle of the night and fill the damn pothole myself, instead of _griping_ about—”

“Let’s change…the subject…” Goh suggested before calmly taking a bite of his food. Both Gra and Mal complied, and the conversation went back to being placidly polite and relatively substanceless. Gra asked some more neutral questions about the places Mal had been, and Mal regaled them all with picturesque postcard descriptions of mountain ranges and quiet lakes and beautiful sunsets.

When they’d exhausted most of the conversation topics, Mal asked for a second serving. Goh nodded and stood, taking Mal’s plate and holding it below the edge of the table. Using his other hand, he swept all of the corn and rice and beans that were strewn across Mal’s placemat onto his plate again, then pointedly set it back down in front of him. Gra snickered, and Mal gave Goh an unamused look, but he picked up his spoon and ate it anyway. He wasn’t accustomed to wasting food, and he’d certainly eaten worse. When he finally cleared his plate, Goh rewarded him by taking it back to the stove and refilling it properly.

After dinner, with a full stomach and a bundle of dry clothes, Mal was in an agreeable enough mood to try spending some quality time with Lore. Gra gave him a small carton of blueberries to offer as both dessert and a gesture of goodwill. Mal didn’t seem to buy into the friendship-building effects of blueberries, but he took them nonetheless, eating a few himself as he headed down the hall.

Gra sighed once he was gone, cracking his neck and rolling his shoulders. He finished clearing the table and brought everything to the counter, where Goh had already donned his dish gloves and started to tackle the least of the mess, leaving the largest pan to soak. “Good dinner,” Gra said, picking up a glass to dry.

“Mhmm…” Goh responded. He started handing items directly to Gra, and after a few passes, he said, “He really…hasn’t changed…has he?”

“C’mon, don’t say that,” Gra said. “He’s gotten at least twice as weird.”

Goh chuckled quietly, and Gra smiled at the sound. He finished drying the available dishes, and while Goh was busy scrubbing out the soup pot, Gra reached over and lightly dragged his fingertips across his back. Immediately, one of Goh’s shoulders raised, and Gra went to it, scratching vigorously while Goh sighed in satisfaction. Generally speaking, when it came to back rubs, Goh was the best at deep, soothing massages. But Gra was the one to call when you needed an itch scratched.

After a minute or so, Goh shrugged his shoulder again, this time to signal that Gra’s work was done. While he picked up the sponge and went back to dishwashing, Gra bent down to kiss the top of his head, lingering until he felt Goh stand up a little straighter to lean into it. He kissed him a few more times, moving to his forehead, then along his receding hairline. Goh shut his eyes, letting Gra pull him closer as he pressed a series of soft kisses down the side of his face.

He made it to Goh’s cheek, but no further. Mal’s footsteps were coming back down the hall, accompanied by a quiet, “Hey.” Gra sighed and nuzzled the side of Goh’s head before looking up, just in time to see Mal appear in the doorway.

“Hey,” he repeated. “Sorry to interrupt.”

The apology was nice, at least, but it meant that he was still knowingly interrupting, which was a little less nice. Goh resumed washing the dishes while Gra rested his arms around his waist and his chin on top of Goh’s head, looking at Mal. “Whaddya want?”

Mal jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Your ‘dog’ is having trouble shedding. Around his toes.”

Gra sighed again. “All right. Thanks.” He bent down to give Goh one last peck on the cheek, rubbed his back fondly, and left to go give Lore’s little feet a soak in the tub.

Goh didn’t turn around, but he knew Mal was lingering awkwardly in the doorway, like a child unsure if he had been dismissed from the room or was expected, for whatever reason, to stay. Truthfully, Goh didn’t have anything against Mal, beyond the occasional inconvenience of his presence. Still, that didn’t mean he was eager to engage in more small talk, especially without Gra as a buffer.

Across the room, Mal cleared his throat. “I can take care of that,” he said. When Goh looked at him, Mal gestured vaguely at the sink. “If you want.”

Goh paused, about to turn down his offer automatically. But after a moment, he shrugged and moved over to make room. Mal joined him at the sink, rolling his sleeves up and holding his hand out for the sponge. “Detergent’s…there,” Goh said, pointing at the almost-empty bottle on the counter.

“All right.”

Goh then pointed at the stack of dishes beside the sink. “The flat ones…are…plates.”

Mal gave him an equally flat look. “Yeah. I’m familiar with kitchenware.”

“Water…comes out…of here,” Goh went on, tapping the faucet and drawing immeasurable delight from watching Mal try to keep a lid on his annoyance. “Think of it like…an indoor…river.”

“Why don’t you go help Gra give your dinosaur his pedicure?” Mal suggested, acidly sarcastic. Goh chuckled and removed his gloves, leaving them on the side of the sink in case Mal wanted to use them. As he left, he heard Mal pick up the next dish, muttering something about how even the reptiles were pampered in this house.

When Goh reached the bathroom, he saw Gra on one knee by the tub, splashing some water onto Lore and making sure he’d doused every patch of skin before scrubbing him with a soft-bristled brush. “How’s he…doing?” Goh asked, taking a seat on the edge of the tub.

“Finnicky,” Gra said, trying to hold Lore still so he could give him a foot massage. “Not surprised, though, what with our guest throwing off the whole vibe in this house.” He gave Goh a look over his shoulder. “How’s _he_ doin’, by the way?”

“Fine,” Goh said, reaching down and swirling some of the water to distract Lore. It didn’t work for long, but Gra managed to get one and a half of his feet clean in the meantime. “He’s washing…the dishes.”

“Huh. That’s refreshingly thoughtful of him.”

“Mhmm.” Goh drizzled a bit of water on Lore’s head, letting it trickle down his neck and back into the tub, before grabbing a towel to dry his hands. “He’s been oddly…quiet…this time. Did he mention…why he’s here? Or where he was…coming from…at least?”

“Nope,” Gra said, frowning as he tried to turn Lore around to get at his back foot. In moments like this, he was thankful the lizard hadn’t managed to grow his tail back after all. According to Tek, a full regeneration would have doubled his body length, and their tub was woefully narrow to begin with. “Could’ve been up north, could’ve been further west. Could’ve been Mexico for all I know.”

“…I’m starting to think…I might fit in with your family…after all. You seem to have a…wandering tendency…as much as…I do.”

“You have no idea.” Gra’s shoulders slumped in relief as he finally took the last peel of thin, white skin off Lore’s toes. He relaxed while Goh handled the heavy lifting, removing Lore from the tub and making him sit still long enough to be dried off, more or less. Lore strode back to his own room, squeaky clean and ready for a nap, and Goh offered to do the rest of the cleaning, giving Gra a well deserved break.

As Gra headed to their bedroom to change into an outfit that wasn’t splashed with iguana bathwater, he couldn’t help reflecting on those “wandering tendencies.” He tugged a clean T-shirt over his head, letting his thoughts stray to all the way back to the black sheep of the flock, the unholy trinity of cousins that had plagued his family throughout his youth. Mal was the third born. Gra was the second.

And it had been a long, long time since he’d thought about the first.

* * *

_Gra heads up the stairs, each footfall small, fraught, and silent. He’s clutching an envelope full of grown-up papers that he doesn’t understand. His parents and aunts and uncles had sent him up with them, saying with a dismissive, sour sort of humor, “Better you than us—she won’t bite _your_ head off.” They had handed him the envelope, given him a nudge between his tiny shoulder blades, and gone back to whatever they’d been talking about before without a second glance in his direction._

_He creeps up the steps now, like an animal skirting the edge of a trap. Usually he loves being the center of attention, but not like this. It’s not that he’s afraid of his oldest cousin. His tallest cousin. His strongest cousin. His only girl cousin. Definitely not. It’s just that everything has changed so suddenly, and Gra isn’t sure what it all means or how to handle it._

_Or maybe it’s not sudden. Maybe he’s just too young to have picked up on the dirty looks and hushed conversations until they escalated into a blowout. As young as he is, he’s old enough to start realizing that that’s just how families are sometimes._

_Gra reaches the top of the stairs and goes down the hallway. He hasn’t been to his cousin’s house often, but he could’ve sworn the walls didn’t used to close in on him the further he walked. Still, he soldiers on, and he pauses at the second to last door, which is, thankfully, partway open. He feels like his heart might burst entirely if he has to do something as decisive as knock. She might’ve mistaken him for a more antagonistic family member and thrown something at him. She does have a lot of glassware._

_He nudges the door open a bit more and sees her standing at her bed, filling up a duffel bag. He can’t see her face—her back is to the door—but her broad shoulders are tense as she violently shoves clothes into her bag, like an evisceration in reverse. Gra waits for her to magically realize that he’s there, and when she doesn’t, he timidly says, “Sa?”_

_She doesn’t respond. She might not have heard him; he’s being uncharacteristically soft-spoken. When she goes to her dresser to gather more shirts, and has her ear turned toward the door, Gra tries again. “Sa? It’s me.”_

_She glances at him, just once, and goes right back to packing. Gra almost jolts at the brief glimpse of her eyes. They’re furious, but they shine._

_He swallows hard. He’s not equipped to handle any of this. He knows it. So does she. The only people who don’t seem to realize it are the ones who sent him up here in the first place._

_He holds the envelope out, hating the few seconds where it trembles in his grasp. “Um, these are for you? They said you’d need—”_

_He flinches when she crosses the room and swipes the envelope out of his hands, still without making eye contact. She’s ignoring him the way she’s been ignoring everyone since early this morning. If Gra knew what the word “complicit” meant, then that’s how he would feel. As it stands, he just feels confused, and hurt._

_Sa stuffs the papers into her duffel bag along with everything else, not treating any of it with any special care. Gra wipes his sweaty hands on his T-shirt, then holds onto the hem of it, pulling on a loose thread. If his aunt were here, she’d give his hand a slap and tell him to stop ruining his clothes, ignoring the fact that he’s the third recipient of this particular hand-me-down. Three generations, for a single T-shirt, and of course he’d get the blame if it fell apart._

_But his aunt isn’t here. Sa is. And not for much longer._

_The two of them have never been close. She’s ten years older than Gra and some kind of nerd-jock hybrid, an odd combination that has little to no overlap with any of Gra’s interests. Arts and crafts, mainly, and music. And astronomy, though that’s mostly limited to sneaking out into the fields at night and looking up at the sky. Occasionally Gra would see a shooting star, but no one had ever told him he could wish on them, so he never did. The only wish he made was that they’d last a little longer before they flickered out in the darkness._

_The two of them have never been close, but they aren’t going to get any closer. So Gra takes a shallow breath, screws up whatever courage he has left, and says, “How—how come you’re leaving?”_

_“You know why.” She keeps her voice in check, all the tension coiling in her shoulders and chest and throat. Her explosion of anger must have happened earlier, it if happened at all. Gra can just as easily see her shutting down and turning all of her focus and energy on getting the hell out of here. Mentally, emotionally, she’s already out the door. All that’s left is the matter of packing her bag._

_She’s leaving behind her jewelry, her decorative keepsakes, anything superfluous. She packs a few books—just small, mass market paperbacks—but when she tries to fit her socks into the bag, she scowls and takes the books out again to make room. She tosses them onto her bed more carelessly than she needs to, trying to convince herself that they aren’t important after all. She packs a scarf—not a bright, colorful one, but a winter scarf, gray and woolen and warm, even though it’s the middle of June._

_She’s still barely acknowledged Gra. She’s probably just waiting for him to leave her alone so she can exit this house with a shred of dignity intact. He figures he should go, too, but his stomach squirms when he thinks about walking away. Something critical is happening here, and not just to Sa. Whatever’s going on will carry over after she’s gone, and trickle down to him. He doesn’t know how, or why, but he knows it as much as he’s ever known anything._

_As Sa starts zipping up the pockets of her duffel bag, Gra realizes this is it. She’s done packing and is ready to go, and Gra, possessed by the urge to say _something_ before this moment and his cousin slip past him forever, blurts out the only thing that comes to mind._

_“Do you hate us?”_

_For the first time, Sa pauses. It’s nothing more than a brief stilling of hands before she finishes zipping up the duffel bag. She heaves it off the bed, carrying the weight of everything she can reasonably lay claim to on her shoulders, then turns to face Gra._

_“I hate _them_,” she says, with every ounce of sincerity at her disposal. “But you’re not one of them, Gra. You’re one of me. And no matter what you do, no matter how well you play along, they’re never gonna let you forget it. And they’re never gonna let you be happy here.”_

_Gra feels like he’s going to throw up. Sa sees his fear, and for the first time that Gra knows of, she almost softens. She makes him nervous, but he’s not afraid of her, or even for her. He’s afraid because, on some level, he feels as if he’s seeing his future unfold before his eyes. He’s barely begun to understand what it means to be a person, and here’s Sa, showing him what a more or less fully-realized individual looks like. And now, showing him what it costs._

_She walks to the door, and Gra shrinks back to let her pass. But she stops on the threshold, letting him share that space with her. She puts her hand on his scrawny shoulder and squeezes it—not a threat or a warning, but a gesture of understanding. She does squeeze a little too hard, inviting him to be strong enough to take it. He winces but tries not to, and she sees and appreciates the effort._

_“If there’s anything you want to tell me, you’d better do it now,” she says, “because I’m not coming back.”_

_Gra tries to think of something to ask, something better than his last question. Nothing comes to him. He just stares up at her, feeling like exactly what he is: a child out of his depth. Sa looks down at him, not sympathetic, not pitying, not unimpressed. Just matter-of-fact and unmoved. “You don’t know what to say.” Gra nods._

_She loosens her grip on his shoulder somewhat. “Listen, then,” she says. “Learn from my fuck-ups. When you get to be my age, don’t sit around here until they kick you out. If you think they’re going to, then you leave first. Don’t wait for them to make the decision for you.”_

_“You mean…disowned?” Gra asks, his voice tight. He still doesn’t fully grasp what that word means, but the way the adults had said it…he can guess._

_Sa exhales fiercely through her nose. She turns her head, almost able to see the front door past the stairs. She’s so close to her forced freedom, but she stays behind just a moment longer. She shrugs the duffel bag off and puts it on the floor so she can lay both hands on Gra’s shoulders, leaning down to look him in the eye. She waits until he’s holding her gaze, so there’s no avoiding the weight of her words._

_“Better disowned than owned.”_

_Gra gets chills, the kind that go straight down to the soles of his feet. It’s a powerful statement that he’s too young to be at all inspired by, offering a glimpse of a future full of difficult decisions that he still wants to feel distant from, but which he knows he’s going to have to think about sooner than his peers. His uncles have already pointed out his hand-talking tendencies, and his mother often asks if he _really_ wants to wear such colorful shirts, and all of them go out of their way to mention their distaste for theater. And the worst part is that it doesn’t even feel insulting so much as protective. Like they’re saying these things for Gra’s own good, trying to reprogram his blaring neon signs before they’re lit._

_Like before, Gra doesn’t know how to respond, and like before, Sa doesn’t make him try to figure it out. While she’s still eye-level with him and still has her hands on his shoulders, she drags him into a hug. It’s stilted; she has little to no experience hugging any of her cousins, and it ends up somewhere between a warm embrace and a much more familiar headlock. Gra’s so surprised that he doesn’t return it, and by the time it occurs to him that he could, Sa’s already letting him go. She tugs his shirt back into place, and then she picks up her bag, slings it over her shoulder again, and walks down the stairs and out the door._

* * *

With the dishes washed and the iguana bathed, Goh decided to turn in for the night, retiring to his room with a book. Gra and Mal went out to the front porch, watching the sunset over a few post-dinner beers. Mal didn’t offer much in the way of conversation. He seemed captivated by the sky, the searing colors offset by the true black of the earth. While he watched the sun melt into the horizon, until it was little more than a wire-thin line of brightness in the dark, Gra spent some more time privately mulling over his childhood memories.

He had tried asking questions after Sa left. His family had been tight-lipped, and all he managed to learn was that she had gone “overseas.” The part no one talked about, but which he had managed to piece together over the years, was that she had gone with a girl who had spent that year as a foreign exchange student at Sa’s high school. Maybe she was her wife now; hell, maybe they’d been together longer than him and Goh.

Or maybe Sa had never settled down. Maybe her companions were second to her love of travel, or freedom. Maybe she loved what they represented or offered more than she loved who they inherently were. Gra supposed it didn’t make much of a difference. She had been deeply unhappy at home for a multitude of reasons. If she hadn’t been kicked out, she would have found an excuse to leave sooner or later.

Mal had never met her. He might not have even known who she was. Everyone had been careful not to mention her after she’d left, and that was several years before Mal was born. She was an errant limb on their family tree, pruned cleanly and never addressed again.

Not that that was enough to stop Gra from following in her footsteps. Or Mal, for that matter.

Gra slumped comfortably in his seat while Mal kept one foot braced up against the chair beside him. He seemed at ease enough, but something about his posture always made him look as if he were ready to bolt at the slightest disturbance. Or maybe he was just trying to look cool. He wore his years clearly—his face a little more severe than it used to be, his dark hair shot through with a gray streak at each temple—but in some ways, he had never quite outgrown his teenage self.

When he tipped his bottle back to empty it, Gra took another one out of the cooler by his feet and raised his eyebrows. Mal paused, then shrugged, and Gra wrenched the cap off before handing it over, helping himself to another as well. They continued their silent skygazing until Gra said, “Didja get enough to eat?”

“Yeah,” Mal said. “Goh’s a good cook.” Gra nodded, accepting the compliment on his behalf. After a minute, Mal added, “Has he shrunk since the last time I was here?”

“…I don’t…think so?” Gra replied, looking puzzled. “His posture’s worse, though.”

“That’s probably it. Looks shorter. Stouter.” He glanced at Gra with a glint in his eyes. “You’re as gangly as ever, though.”

“Yeah, thanks. I try.” Mal snickered, shaking his head as he took another sip of beer.

“What a match, the two of you. It’s like a scarecrow and a garden gnome came to life.”

“Wow,” Gra said, trying not to laugh. “Okay, so, what does that make you, then? A fuckin’ gargoyle?”

Mal grinned, seeming flattered. Gra shook his head as well, looking at the purple horizon. “A scarecrow and…man, you told me you weren’t on drugs.”

“Yeah, you’re one to talk. Don’t think I didn’t see that urdrupe in the kitchen cabinet.”

“Ex_cuse_ me, I have a _prescription_ for that.” Mal paused, and after a moment, when Gra heard his own words, he added, “…damn. I’m getting old.”

Mal snorted. “_I’m_ getting old. You _are_ old.”

Gra reached out, planting his hand on the side of Mal’s head and giving him a little shove. Mal leaned out of his grasp and lightly slapped him away, raking his hand through his hair to get it out of his face. They went back to sitting together quietly, listening to the chirping and chittering of various animals, hidden by the plants and the darkness.

“So…I’m not gonna ask why you’re here again,” Gra finally said. “Mostly ‘cause I’m as sick of asking as you are of deflecting. But you gotta give me _something_ if you’re staying over. What’s going on with you lately? Like, generally speaking? Where’ve you been living?”

Mal took another swig of beer, letting it go down slowly. “Right now, I’m living here. Tomorrow, who knows?”

“Yeah,” Gra said, unconvinced. “Goh used to think like that, too.” Mal shrugged. “…you could stay a while, y’know. Come up with an actual game plan before you go gallivanting off into the wilderness.”

“But I don’t _want_ to,” Mal said. “And you don’t want me to, either.”

“Well, no. If it were up to me, you’d have your own place somewhere back…there,” Gra said, gesturing in a vaguely eastward direction. “Part of the appeal of living out here is being away from the family. And as much as I’ve always been able to tolerate you, you _are_ family.”

Mal didn’t seem too insulted by that; he understood Gra’s position better than almost anyone. “Well, moot point, anyway. Goh doesn’t like me.”

“You kiddin’? He loves having you around. He thinks you’re hilarious.”

Mal scoffed. “I’ve been called a lot of things by a lot of people. ‘Hilarious’ isn’t usually part of the list.” He held his beer bottle in both hands, drumming his short fingernails against it. When he felt enough time had passed, but not too much, he said, “Hey…while we’re on the subject of family—”

“Nope,” Gra said simply. He wasn’t even upset by this topic anymore, just tired of having to address the same points, over and over again. There was nothing new to say, because nothing had changed, because nothing _would_.

For a moment, he felt the absurd sting of guilt for not living up to Sa’s final request of him—her _only_ request of him. “Learn from my fuck-ups,” she’d said, perfectly willing to shoulder some of the blame for her situation if it meant someone else might benefit from it.

But by the time he’d reached her age, it was an entirely different decade. It wasn’t the _fifties_ anymore, it was the _sixties_. Almost the _seventies_. Things were _different_.

And they were. But so was he. And Gra learned the hard way that sometimes it just wasn’t enough for someone else to plow ahead through the thorns and underbrush to lay down a path, complete with signposts and a hand-drawn map to freedom. Sometimes you had to go blundering into the thicket yourself, thinking that surely _you_ could find a better way, that _you_ could be the one to see the path that your predecessors had so foolishly missed. _You_ could be the one to convince the others to follow.

He had genuinely believed that. Sa, after all, had been coarse and headstrong, generally thought of as too arrogant and confident and outspoken to be truly likable. Gra was good-humored, friendly, and idealistic. He liked to laugh and have fun and drag others along with him. Surely, with his exuberant personality and the passage of time on his side, he could get the others to come around.

They had handled it only marginally better than they’d handled Sa. There were no screaming matches, no thrown plates or slammed doors. Just a resigned, unsurprised, “Fine. You can live however you want. But not under this roof.”

He had been prepared for the possibility that they wouldn’t accept who he was. It had never occurred to him that they could find a way to accept who he was while still managing to reject him.

“I’m not talking about a visit,” Mal went on. “I mean, fuck knows I don’t even go back there. But would a call kill you? I do a group call at Christmas—that’s the most I can handle, but it seems to satisfy them till next year.”

“Did you forget _they_ disowned _me_?” Gra asked. “It’s not like this was my choice, ya know.”

“I know.” Mal went quiet, peeling at the label on his beer, then smoothing it out again to read it. Gra furrowed his brow as he watched him.

“How come you get calls, anyway? They didn’t disown _you_ when they found out?”

“Oh,” Mal said, self-assuredly, “they don’t know.” When Gra raised his eyebrows, Mal gave him a sly look. “What, you think I’d be stupid enough to tell them after how they reacted to _you_? Some survivalist I’d be if I didn’t learn from your mistakes.”

Gra stared at him, then shook his head and looked at the horizon again. “You’re a little shit, you know that?”

Mal laughed quietly into his bottle as he took another sip of beer, pleased with himself. A moment later, Gra let out a chuckle of his own. “Y’know, at this point, I think you might be the only one who keeps in touch ‘cause you’re the only one who _can_. They don’t have my number anymore—they don’t even know what state I live in. If they wanted to talk again, they’d be totally reliant on you.”

“They could hire a P.I. if they really wanted to. Or just do a background check online.”

“Yeah, but how many of them do you think realize that’s an option?”

“Heh, true. They’re dumb as hell.”

“Yeah.” Gra smiled a little, but slowly, it faded. “…you _haven’t_ told them anything, right?”

He tried to say it as nonchalantly as possible, but when he glanced at Mal, his cousin looked genuinely insulted. Beyond insulted—almost _hurt_. “No,” he said, frowning. “Of course not.”

Gra nodded and turned back to the view, but he could see out of the corner of his eye that Mal was still watching him. He stayed like that for a few seconds, holding Gra with his stare, trying to figure something out. “You really think I would?” he finally asked. Gra shook his head.

“No,” he said, honestly. “Just had to ask, I guess. Just for myself. Peace of mind, y’know?”

Mal kept an eye on him for a moment longer, but then he softened, as much as he ever could, and followed Gra’s gaze to the skyline again. “Yeah,” he said. “I know.”

“And, hey, look. While you’ve got me on this topic—against my will, by the way—you don’t have to keep making those calls every year.”

“Know that, too.” Mal rested his elbows on the arms of his chair and let his half-empty bottle hang, tapping it absentmindedly against his leg. “It’s not out of obligation, if that’s what you’re getting at. I think it just helps to give myself some kind of focal point. All my traveling, and I still don’t have any particular destination. So it’s easier to keep one place in mind to avoid, and go from there.”

Gra laughed. “Whatever works, I guess. But just ‘cause you don’t wanna go back there, doesn’t mean you can’t have a home _anywhere_. Big world, y’know. Big, big world.”

Mal cocked his head once, neither accepting nor denying that claim. “Really, though,” Gra went on. “This whole bindle-toting, train-hopping thing hasn’t lost its shine yet?”

Mal sighed as he looked out into the night, as if he were inviting the universe to share his disbelief that Gra continued to harp on this particular point. “Don’t you get all huffy at me,” Gra said, giving Mal’s foot a scolding tap with his own, a gesture which Mal returned immediately. “You’re a pain in the ass, and I _know_ you know that, but still. We go years without seeing you—how’m I supposed to know something bad hasn’t happened?”

“Are you saying you’d like me to stop by _more_ often?”

“No. God, no. But you spend your time out in the middle of nowhere. What if you get into trouble?”

“Such as?”

“I dunno. What if you get mauled by a wild animal? What if you have a heart attack, and there’s no one around for miles? What if…I don’t know, you spontaneously combust or something?”

Mal burst out laughing. “What if I _what_?”

“Spontaneous human combustion. It’s a thing, I’m pretty sure. Look it up.”

“All right,” Mal said, still laughing. “If I _spontaneously combust_, then I promise I’ll high-tail it over here and make sure I drop dead in your driveway, just so you get some closure. Feel better?”

“Much. Thanks.” Gra rested his ankle on his knee, fiddling with his sandal. “This is all incidental to my actual _point_, anyway. Which is that it can be nice to have more than just a reminder of what you _don’t_ want. I mean, c’mon. Don’t you _ever_ think about settling down someday?”

Mal rolled his eyes. “What, in a place? Or with a person?”

“Both. Or either.”

“No,” Mal said. “For the former, I can’t afford anything on my own, and I can’t stand long-term roommates. As for the latter…” He gave Gra a wicked grin. “Why give up the thrill of the hunt?”

Gra looked at him skeptically. “Wasn’t the last guy you were seeing an accountant?”

Mal’s smile faded. “…yes,” he said, taking another sip of beer, this one a little longer than usual. Gra tried not to laugh.

“Wow. Exciting stuff.”

Mal shook his head slowly, staring into the middle distance with a faraway look in his eyes, as if he were reliving a particularly harrowing experience. “You have no idea,” he said grimly. “That guy was a freak in every way. And that’s coming from _me_. I didn’t leave him because I got bored. I _escaped_.”

“…you _did_ say you don’t have any stalkers, right?”

“Oh, if he’s plotting revenge, it’ll be _years_ before I know about it. He’s…that kind of guy.”

Gra wasn’t sure how comforted he was by that, but ultimately, he trusted Mal’s judgment. It wasn’t like he ever stayed here long enough for the problems accumulating in his wake to catch up with him, anyway. They sat in silence for a while, enjoying the breeze that drifted by. Mal lifted his head and took a deep, quiet breath of it. When Gra started to feel the gnawing lack of conversation, he said, “Y’know, things don’t have to be the same now as back when we were kids. And you’ve still got some kind of connection to the rest of them. Maybe you should…I’unno. Consider telling them, at least?”

“Nice try.”

“I’m serious. They might be burnt out on excommunicating family members by now. Odds are they don’t even care about it anymore.”

“Trust me,” Mal said, “they do. Most of them, anyway. And the ones who don’t care about it don’t care enough to speak up. So, y’know. Fuck them, too, I guess.”

Gra wasn’t terribly surprised to hear that, or even disheartened. He was ready to drop the subject again, this time for good, but Mal looked like he was still thinking it over.

“You know,” he said, finally coming to a conclusion that must have seemed obvious in hindsight, “maybe they _wouldn’t_ give a shit after all. But only if it was me telling them. It’s not like they ever had any expectations for me to fail to live up to.”

“Hmm. Must be nice.”

“Not really.” Mal shifted in his seat, bringing both feet down to the floor. “Sucks, but at least if you went back, it’d be a whole big thing. I can be gone for years, and no matter how long it’s been, whenever they see me it’s just, ‘Oh, hey, look, it’s Mal.’ And that’s it. Bunch of people awkwardly asking what I’ve ‘been up to,’ pretending to be interested, pretending we aren’t strangers. And then going right back to whatever they always talk about. Salon gossip and PTA drama, year in and year out. And I stand there wondering why I bothered traveling all that way.” He studied his beer bottle, holding off on taking the last sip. “I know I live a weird life. I know you think so, and I know they do, too. But whenever I show up, it seems like _that’s_ what throws everyone off the most. The disappearing is normal—it’s coming back that’s weird, apparently. It’s like everyone’s just waiting for me to take the hint and stay gone.”

Mal sat in silence with his own words for a moment, and then, when he seemed to actually hear them, he shrugged dismissively. Gra didn’t look at him. All these decades away from his family, and still, he had to wonder how much overlap there was between their treatment of Mal and his own. He knew as well as anyone that there was a fine line between accepting someone’s quirks and idiosyncrasies, and using them to brand him as an outsider. “Oh, that’s just how Mal is,” was a statement that could just as easily be accepting as it could be insulting.

“Well,” he began, “I think your visits would be _slightly_ less jarring if you, like…rang the doorbell, instead of climbing up the roof. But aside from that, you’re welcome to drop in anytime you want. I think our boring little life can still throw enough curve balls to keep things interesting. I swear, it’s like the island of misfit toys in this neighborhood sometimes.” Mal snorted, more amused than derisive. “Not that I’m in any position to judge,” Gra went on. “Our house has turned into a black sheep magnet. And it’s not even the weirdest one on this street. Probably not even in the top three. But, I dunno…I always figured if you put enough strays together, eventually they’d just make their own flock.”

Gra knew he was rambling, but he’d lost track of the point he was trying to make, or even which one of them he was trying to reassure. He still wasn’t looking at Mal, and he knew Mal wasn’t looking at him, either. For a moment, Gra wasn’t sure if either of them would say anything, or if they had driven the conversation right into a sappy, sentimental rut from which they would never be able to salvage it. A brief movement caught his eye, and he risked a glance to the side. Mal was still gazing at the horizon, but he had his arm outstretched, his beer bottle tilted toward Gra.

Gra held his own bottle out, clinking it against Mal’s. He took a sip of beer while Mal did the same, finally finishing off his drink. He said nothing as he passed the empty bottle to Gra, and when Gra leaned down to put the bottle back in the cooler, he kept the lid open. “Want another? Got two more in here, nice ’n’ cold.”

Mal shook his head. “Nah,” he said. “Think I’ll go for a jog.”

“…yeah?” Gra asked, glancing down the street. He was no stranger to jogging in the dark, but it was always with a new day just over the horizon, not shortly after sunset. But Mal had already risen from his chair, giving himself a quick stretch and shake to loosen his limbs.

“Yeah. I’ll be back in a couple hours. Don’t wait up; I’ll let myself in. Just leave a window unlocked.”

“All right,” Gra said hesitantly. “See y—”

And Mal was off, jogging down the driveway and being swallowed up by the night, appearing only briefly beneath the concentrated light of the street lamps. Gra watched him go, marveling at how neatly Mal’s obsession with physical fitness dovetailed with his social awkwardness. It was almost cartoonish, the lengths he would go to excuse himself from a conversation once it became a little too honest.

Gra sighed and did some quick stretches of his own, first from the comfort of his chair, then on his feet. Quickly, but without hurrying, he placed all the bottles back in the cooler and carried it inside. He rinsed the empties before putting them in the recycling bin, then finished putting away the few dishes that had been left out on the drying rack. He wiped down the sink and counter, found an extra blanket to put on the couch for Mal, made sure Lore’s water dish was full and his indoor habitat was set to the appropriate temperature and humidity level, and then, finally, he went to his own room.

He and Goh had established such a consistent nighttime routine, even on unpredictable and frankly ridiculous days like this, that Goh didn’t even look up from his book when Gra entered the room. If there was something on Gra’s mind, then he would launch into a rant as soon as he walked through the door, regardless of what Goh was doing. And if nothing was bothering him, then he’d simply go about getting into pajamas and brushing his teeth, and Goh could continue reading with the white noise of Gra gargling mouthwash in the background.

This time, Gra caught Goh completely off guard by sitting on the edge of the bed and taking the book right out of his hands. He laid it on the nightstand—page-side down, to save the place—and before Goh could remind him how unbelievably rude that was, Gra leaned forward and kissed him. It wasn’t enough to quell Goh’s urge to scold him, especially when they both knew it would take him at least ten minutes to get his reading momentum back. But their day had been long and tiring, and the kiss was simple and warm, so Goh returned it, though he grimaced slightly at the taste of beer when Gra moved away. “Was that…a lite?”

“Hey, one of us has to watch his girlish figure.” Goh looked unamused, but Gra leaned in again, bumping their foreheads together softly. “Thanks for bein’ so great about all of this. I did tell him last time to call before he showed up again.”

“Do you…really think…he owns a phone?”

Gra chuckled. “Nah.” He kissed the tip of Goh’s nose, then nuzzled it with his own, hooked and pointed against Goh’s broad and rounded. “But seriously. Thanks for rolling with this. I know he’s not the easiest person to put up with.”

Goh shrugged. “He’s a remarkably…self-sufficient…house guest.”

Gra snorted, scooting closer and not-so-subtly removing Goh’s hair tie. As he unraveled the long braid, Goh added, “And he _is…_the only family of yours…that I get…to meet…”

He meant it as a wry, tongue-in-cheek comment, more at Mal’s expense than anyone else’s. But Gra’s hands slowed, smoothing Goh’s hair without any real focus. He looked almost guilty, and Goh, sensing that he’d made the mood a little heavier than it needed to be, placed his hand on Gra’s face to brighten it again. He brushed his thumb along his cheek and said, “Besides…if I can learn…how to put up…with _you_…then I can...put up with—”

Gra didn’t give him a chance to finish, knowing where he was going with that fond jab anyway. He leaned in again, kissing Goh more deeply than before, and Goh took his face in his hands to pull him closer. Gra was a little too eager, trying to run his hands through Goh’s hair until he remembered his reading glasses. He fumbled them off Goh’s head and put them on the nightstand, and Goh scooted over to the middle of the bed, bringing Gra with him and suspecting that it was going to take a lot longer than ten minutes to get back into his book.

* * *

The next morning, Gra awoke early, as usual. He stretched all of his limbs, then relaxed again, drawing the covers more snugly around himself. Beside him, Goh was still asleep, peaceful as ever. Gra brushed his hair out of his face so he could see it more clearly, though Goh responded by burrowing even further beneath the comforter. He was like a cross between a hibernating bear and a beached whale, and Gra could have happily spent the next hour watching him rest.

But something urged him to get up. He left his bed carefully and threw his ratty old robe on, along with his slippers, before shuffling down the hall to the family room.

The sofa was empty, though the pillow and blankets were at least piled on the cushions instead of the floor this time. When Gra peeked into the kitchen, he found Mal already up, dressed, and packed. He was leaning over the counter, hastily scrawling something on a piece of paper, but when he noticed Gra, he stopped mid-sentence. “Didn’t expect you to be up this early,” he said, capping the pen and stuffing the paper into his pocket. Gra shrugged easily.

“I’m always up this early. Up with the sun.” Mal nodded, and after a few seconds, Gra gestured to the front door. “Let’s go outside.”

The sky was brightening, though the sunrise was pale. It gave the world a delicate look, like faded lace. Mal stepped onto the porch and strapped his bag over his shoulder while Gra shut the door behind them. “So,” he said, putting his hands in the pockets of his robe to keep them warm. “This is it?”

“For now, yeah. I’ve been here long enough already.” He gave Gra a knowing look. “I’m an interloper, not a house guest.”

“You wanna stay for breakfast, at least? We can do Belgian waffles.”

“Tempting,” Mal said, with an almost-laugh. “But nah. The sooner I can get a move on, the better.”

Gra sighed. “Look, about last night…yes, it’s weird how you live. And yes, it’s weird when you show up without warning, via the _roof_. But I meant what I said. You can crash here for another night, if you want. Or longer. I mean, if we can make room for an iguana, we can make room for you, too.”

Mal glanced at Gra, openly annoyed. “Is there anything I can say to convince you that I’m living the life I want to live, and that I’m not struggling? And that even if I _am_, it’s worth it?”

Gra held his gaze, considering both the question and his answer carefully. “Honestly…no,” he finally decided. “But I guess that’s my problem at this point.”

Mal nodded, easing up a bit. “I’ll give you this: your couch is more comfortable than it looks. If I _had_ to stay another night, I wouldn’t mind sleeping on it again.”

“Beats sleeping in a tree, huh?”

“…it _was_ nice not to worry about raccoons,” Mal conceded. “But you need to get your cushions replaced. Your couch has nothing on my trees when it comes to lumbar support.” He pressed his fist against his back to prove his point, but when he caught sight of the glint in Gra’s eyes, he said, “Don’t.”

“Don’t you mean—“

“_Don’t_.”

“—_lumber_ support?”

Mal tried to groan, but he laughed quietly in spite of himself. Gra chuckled along with him at his own dumb joke, until the two of them dwindled back down to a semi-awkward silence. Mal tapped the toe of his boot on the ground, then shifted his weight to do the same with the other, for symmetry’s sake. “Well…don’t be a stranger,” Gra said. “Stranger than you already are, anyway.”

“Yeah,” Mal said. “I’ll see you around, whenever I’m in the area again.” He nodded at the house. “Tell Chong thanks for dinner. And it was nice to meet your…dog.”

“I’m sure they’ll both appreciate it,” Gra said. It was funny, he thought, as he watched Mal stammer his way through a good-bye. He’d spent the past twenty-four hours trying to figure out why Mal had needed to stay over, either by wheedling a confession out of him or by piecing it together on his own. He figured something must have been wrong, some kind of trouble or secret that Mal refused to share.

Now, in the clear morning light, it finally occurred to Gra that maybe Mal had set aside a visit just for its own sake. He was the cousin that Gra had the closest relationship with, by default, but he had never considered them to be terribly close on their own merits. Then again, Gra had an actual basis for comparison, sleeping like a log less than a hundred feet away. What relationships did Mal have in his life that came close to his relationship with Gra? Who else was as consistent? Mal had always evoked the image of a lone wolf, but Gra was starting to think that that wasn’t quite right. He was more like a distant howl, encompassing both self-imposed solitude and a yearning for companionship, all at once.

There was nothing that would spare them the awkwardness of this moment, and both of them knew it. But there _was_ a natural way to end this visit. Mal wasn’t going to be the one to initiate it, but when Gra took his hands out of his pockets and reached for him, he didn’t resist. Gra guided him in gently, jostling his bag just a bit, and Mal not only tolerated the hug, but returned it. They didn’t say anything, no impactful parting words, just a fond and surprisingly tight embrace between two cousins, whose paths in life diverged so drastically that they eventually looped around and crossed again, when they least expected it.

They stood there for a few more seconds, until Gra felt Mal start to tense up. When they released each other, there was a lingering awkwardness, but it dissipated quickly as the sun crested the horizon. “Take care, Mal,” Gra said.

“You too,” Mal replied. And then off he went down the road, to walk until nightfall, to hitchhike before he reached the highway, to find a place to camp—Gra had no idea. He suspected he wouldn’t know until their next reunion, whenever that may be.

Gra put his hands back in his pockets while he watched Mal from the porch, waiting to make sure he got to the end of the street all right as if he were a child again. Even when he disappeared around the corner, Gra stayed outside a bit longer. He let his thoughts drift from Mal all the way back to Sa. The two of them, plus Gra, plus Goh…was four enough to make a flock? It was a moot point, he knew—the other two never would have stayed.

Back in the day, Gra had seen his own potential future reflected in Sa, the exiled. And in Mal, he saw Goh’s potential future as the aimless wanderer. He loved both of his cousins, but in a way, they were cautionary tales after all. Symbols of what Gra and Goh could have become if they’d had to go it alone.

The sun was rising fast. This was normally the time Gra would’ve been returning from his jog, but it wasn’t too late to start. He could get dressed, take an hour-long run, and come back before Goh was even thinking about getting out of bed.

Instead, Gra went inside, returned to his room, shed his slippers and robe, and got right back under the covers. To his surprise, Goh stirred, with a low hum and a few bleary blinks. “Prob…lem…?” he asked. Gra snuggled closer, drawing Goh up against him and kissing the top of his head.

“Nah,” he said softly. “Go back to sleep.”

Goh seemed confused, but he didn’t protest. He started a yawn that he was too tired to finish, then hunkered down again, smothering his face in Gra’s slightly concave chest as he drifted off.

Gra would wait until later to tell him that Mal was already gone. That he’d almost taken off with only a hastily-scribbled note as an explanation, which he hadn’t even thrown away, but put in his own pocket, forever hiding whatever stilted words of thanks and farewell he had tried to share. And when Goh found out, he’d tut disapprovingly and shake his head at Mal’s lack of manners. And Gra would let him, because for all his fondness for his younger cousin, Mal was as riddled with flaws as any of them, and Goh wasn’t wrong to be annoyed about it.

But all of that was for later. For now, Gra simply burrowed into his bed, with his arms wrapped around Goh’s shoulders and his fingers in his hair.

Let Mal be the wayfarer, and Sa the sailor, each of them charting a path in life that led them further and further out. The path Gra had found was one that spiraled inward, until he came to rest in its central point: a solid house on a calm foundation, where Goh met him every day with patience, warmth, and love.

And both of them had seen enough of the wide world to know that there was nothing in it worth more than that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Valentine's Day =)
> 
> So...I took kind of a hard veer away from canon personalities in this chapter. In the process of adapting these characters for a Human AU, I had to try and figure out which of their traits to keep and which ones to leave behind. Some characters, like Tek, were easy.  
Mal was trickier, since I didn't want to have, you know...a literal cryptid-slash-serial-killer running around this cutesy little sitcom. But that's basically his whole gimmick. I ended up keeping a few surface-level traits (weird survivalist lifestyle, tendency to show up without warning and scare the bejeesus out of everyone, etc.) and then just built a personality from the ground up to make him fit in this universe.  
But hey, the skekMal of AoR is also very different from the skekMal of the books, so... ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ If anyone knows how to adapt to the environment, it's him.
> 
> (Also, the unnamed accountant is absolutely, 100% Sil. Watch their scenes in AoR and tell me that's not the behavior of exes who fundamentally can't stand each other, but also can't seem to decide how "over" they are.)


	7. Purr-fect Unity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're back.

“Hey. Didja finish patching up the hole in the fence yet?”

“I…_started_…patching it…up…”

“…so that would be a ‘no,’ then. You know Lore can’t go out without a harness until the fence is fixed, right? Not even for a swim. Do you realize how un-fun is it for him to take a dip in the kiddie pool with a full harness and leash on? He doesn’t even splash around. He just sits there like it’s a hot tub or something. There’s basically no point, you know?”

Goh pushed his knife carefully through the squash on the cutting board, creating a methodical little row of cubes for dinner. “Why do you…keep asking me if…I know things? You know…I do…”

“For emphasis, _obviously_,” Gra said, flapping his shirt to get a breeze going on his stomach. “I mean, it’s gotta get done. And it’s not gonna fix itself.”

“You could…always…try doing it…yourself…”

Gra paused with the hem of his shirt in both hands, half-lifted off his sweating body. “Are you trying to be funny?” he asked incredulously. “We can’t both be the funny one here, Goh. And bein’ funny is the only thing that keeps me at ‘mildly annoyed’ instead of ‘outright pissed off.’”

“You’re not…being that funny…right now…”

“Well, you’re not giving me a lot of material to work with. It’s like you’re going in slow motion or something today. What gives?”

“It’s…hot…out…”

“Then _why_ are you standing by the _stove_?” Gra asked, gesturing with both arms as Goh dumped handfuls of vegetables into a pot of boiling water. “I _said_ I’d order us some food.”

“This was…going to go bad…” Goh said, stirring gently before placing the lid on the pot and moving it to another burner. “We’ll have leftovers…for days…”

“Oh, good. Nice, hot soup all week in the middle of summer.” Gra half sighed, half groaned and flapped his shirt again. “Look, we both know I can’t fix the fence, right? I suck at carpentry stuff. I’ll just end up breaking it even more.”

“Then stop…complaining…if you’re not…contributing.”

“Ex-_cuse_ me? Who’s the one who realized there was a breach in the first place? Who’s the one who ran all the way across the yard and _dove_ in front of the fence in the nick of time to keep Lore from scuttling out? That shit hurt, by the way. Am I just supposed to keep doing that while we all wait around for you to kick it into high gear and go back to your usual eight miles an hour instead of, like, three? Huh?”

Goh stooped down to check on the bread in the oven, and when Gra realized he had given up on responding, he said, “Seriously, what gives? Something up with you today? If you get any slower, you’ll start going backwards.”

“…I think…the heat…is getting to…both of us.” Goh held onto the edge of the counter and hauled himself to his feet again, sighing deeply the entire way up. “Maybe you should…step out…for a bit.”

Nothing lit Gra’s fuse like being told to calm down, especially when he knew it was exactly what he needed to do. Fortunately, the dynamite stick that fuse was attached to was a dud, and he simply grumbled nonsense words to himself as he went to the living room and put on his sandals. “Dinner will…be ready…by the time…” was the last thing he heard before he flip-flopped his way out the door.

It was technically hotter outside in the sunlight, but it was dry, at least, unlike the steamy heat of the kitchen and Lore’s sauna of a room. Plus, there was a light breeze that found its way around Gra’s legs and into his loose sleeves and through his hair, and it calmed him, just a bit. He got like this, sometimes. His emotions overflowed. His joy was like a cluster of balloons too big for one hand to hold, breaking free and spreading out in all directions, buoyant and bright. His excitement rushed over him like a waterfall, and tended to carry everyone around him in its current. And his annoyance crackled like electricity. Sometimes humor helped take the edge off, or sharpened it even more so that his ill-conceived cutting remarks got right to the point, inflicting as little collateral damage as possible. But sometimes it just needed to run its course.

Goh helped when he could. He taught Gra some mindfulness techniques. One of Gra’s favorites involved taking his shoes off, like Goh, and standing outside, focusing on the soles of his feet. It was like meditating, letting his mind go as blank and still as it could and letting the entire universe compress down to the sensations on his bare skin, the pressure, the temperature, the texture of the ground. It felt like hippie nonsense, even for them, but it did work, usually.

Not so much this time, though. Gra wasn’t perfect, but he’d gotten to know his limits fairly well over the years—Goh’s, too. Sometimes when they started to annoy each other, the best thing they could do was separate and walk it off, figuratively or literally.

The neighborhood was too small for an effective walk, so Gra made his way toward the main road, planning to head into town at least part of the way. When he got to the end—or rather, the beginning—of the cul-de-sac, he saw two girls who had taken over the sidewalk with a staggeringly elaborate game of hopscotch. It seemed to start in the driveway, though it was difficult to tell for sure. The path wasn’t linear—it made a series of forked roads and spirals that dizzied Gra when he tried to follow them with his eyes. The squares weren’t numbered, either—some of them weren’t even squares. There were trapezoids, triangles, circles, half-moons, stars, and a few flowers. No two were the same shape and color, thanks to the girls’ creativity and the industrial-sized bucket of chalk sitting by the curb.

The pair had their backs to Gra and were wholly focused on keeping their balance on their respective places. He walked as quietly as he could, and just before the scruffier of the two girls threw her stone, he nudged a pebble with his toe, sending it skittering down the sidewalk past her. “Heads up,” he said, holding the tops of their heads for balance as he hopped cooperatively to his place. The blonder girl ducked aside, refusing to give him an advantage, while the scruffy girl stood up straighter, trying to be the greatest source of stability she could be. Gra ruffled her messy hair as a silent thank you before letting them both go and picking up his pebble to clear the way for them.

“Hi, Gra,” Deet said, shaking her head to get her hair out of her face. “Where’re you going?”

“I’unno. A walk.”

“No Lore today?” Brea asked, almost accusingly.

“No Rian today?” Gra shot back. Brea clearly didn’t appreciate his tone, but Deet, immune to hostility, chimed in, “He’s coming over in a little bit. He’s got _soccer _practice.”

“Lame.”

“So, is Lore coming out later, then?” Brea asked. Gra hesitated. He really hadn’t planned on taking a walk at all today, let alone two. But the girls—especially Brea—had really taken a shine to that little lizard.

“Not today, probably. He’s been kind of a lazybones lately.”

Brea shrugged, not seeming particularly disappointed. She had a lot of heart, but a lot of brains, too, one of the most sentimental and practical people Gra had ever met. Not that Deet wasn’t, in her own way. They were a funny pair, the two of them. So similar on the surface _and_ underneath, and yet in such true-to-themselves ways that they almost felt like opposites.

“We’ll probably bring him out tomorrow,” Gra said. “Maybe we’ll drag the pool out front and you guys can keep an eye on him while he goes for a swim.”

It was a patronizing offer; obviously, Gra would be there to keep an eye on all three of them. But the girls’ faces lit up at any excuse to hang out with Lore. “Deal,” Brea said. “But you should know, we don’t lifeguard for free.”

“No, no, of course not,” Gra said. “You can choose your payment options: cash or popsicles.”

“Popsicles!” Deet exclaimed, at the same time Brea matter-of-factly said, “Cash.”

Gra chuckled, expecting nothing less from either of them. With a wave, he continued on his way and left them to their bamboozling game.

His spirits had been officially lifted. He wasn’t sure if it was the girls’ infectious, childlike attitudes, or if it was simply the act of getting out of the house and talking to someone who wasn’t Goh, but in the end, he supposed it didn’t matter. Goh had suggested a walk, and Gra had agreed, and it had worked. They didn’t always get it right on the first try, but deep down, they knew what was good for them.

With his mood improved and his pace quickening, he managed to make it all the way to the corner store. He greeted the people he knew, even if he only vaguely recognized them. He even nodded at the cat who sat by the entrance to the store. He lingered inside for a few minutes to enjoy the air conditioning, and then, with a carton of moose tracks ice cream—Goh’s favorite flavor—and some root beer and orange soda for floats, Gra headed back home.

The girls were still deep in their self-imposed hopscotch labyrinth, which had finally ensnared its third victim. “Come _on_,” Rian said, trying to balance on an impractically small chalk heart. “Why can’t you guys just connect the spaces like every other person?”

“_Ugh_,” Brea said, embellishing her eyeroll by turning her face all the way up to the sky, a level of unnecessary theatrics that Gra wholeheartedly approved of. “How _boring_. _Why_ would we want to play the game like everyone _else_?”

“We make our own rules,” Deet said cheerfully. “Now hop to it. Heh.”

“It’s just unfair,” Rian muttered, staring balefully at the distance between his current space and the next one. “You know I can’t jump as far as you two.”

Gra slowed down as he approached the trio, genuinely curious to see if Rian would be able to make the leap. He bunched himself up for a moment, looking as if he were about to go for it, only to sigh and give up before he even tried. Deet and Brea exchanged glances, and without a word, they left their spaces and went to his side, each of them grabbing him under one arm. He only had a moment to be surprised before he realized what they were doing, and then he hung his head in embarrassed defeat as they hoisted him off the ground and carried him to his destination, him dangling helplessly from their grips like a kitten in the mouth of its mother.

“Tada!” Deet said, laughing as they placed him on the lopsided yellow heptagon she’d drawn earlier. “You made it!”

“Very impressive,” Brea said dryly, and Rian responded with an equally sarcastic, “Ha, _ha_.”

Gra snickered. He hadn’t been sure about these kids when they first came to the neighborhood, but it hadn’t taken long for them to grow on him. Brea, with her precocious attitude and, even worse, the knowledge and critical thinking skills to back it up. Deet, with her spacey personality and occasional flashes of borderline philosophic brilliance. And Rian, the necessary third line of the triangle, forming the stable base to keep the other two grounded, when necessary. If their friendship were a literal ship, Deet would have been the sails, Brea the helm, and Rian the ballast.

He waved as he walked past, not planning to stop for another chat. Deet and Rian waved politely back, and Brea said, without any preamble, “Oh, is that a new sibling for Lore?”

Gra furrowed his brow. “What the—heck are you talking about?” All three children pointed behind him in perfect unison, and Gra glanced over his shoulder to see a cat coming up on his heels. She stopped walking when he did and looked at him expectantly, confirming his fast-growing fear that she was, in fact, following him, and had been for some time. Since the corner store, he realized. He supposed that was what he got for being friendly. He got stalked by a strange cat, who now knew which neighborhood he lived in.

But not which house. Maybe he could still shake her.

She swished her tail once. “…hello,” Gra replied. She swished her tail again.

“She looks nice,” Brea said, taking a step forward, and then two steps back when Rian pulled her by the arm.

“Don’t,” he said, shuffling his feet to stay on his hopscotch tile. “It looks like a stray. It could scratch you, or bite—_Deet_.”

Gra heard the slap of her shoes on the sidewalk, and since his arms were preoccupied with food and drinks, he stuck his leg out at an angle—not enough to trip her, just enough to create a sort of barricade between her and the cat. Deet hopped over his shin with a single bound—Rian really hadn’t been kidding about her skills. For a moment, Gra hoped that her sudden movement would be enough to send the cat running, but it barely flinched. When Deet crouched down, despite Gra’s and Rian’s reminders to be careful, the cat even stuck its nose forward a bit to establish some rapport.

Gra was still trying to figure out how to wrangle three children and a cat when, thankfully, the front door to Deet’s house opened, and Mitjan stepped out onto the walkway. “Deet,” he called, “time to come in. Dinner’s almost…ah…?” He paused, looking at the cat, then at Gra, and then nodding at the cat again. “Um…what’s this?”

“A friend!” Deet said, offering her hand to the cat and getting a cautious but not unfriendly sniff in return. Gra couldn’t help chuckling, and Mitjan eased up a bit, coming down the walkway to assess the situation.

“Hey, Gra,” he said, trying not to laugh. “So…another one, huh? Are we gonna see you taking this one for walks around the neighborhood, too?”

“Absolutely not,” Gra insisted, just as the cat rose to her feet and sauntered right over to him, arching her back against his leg. It did nothing to endear her to him, but as a theater nerd, he had to applaud her comedic timing. “I don’t know whose this it, to be honest. A stray, I guess.”

“Where’d you find her?”

“The convenience store. Or _in_convenience store, apparently,” Gra added, while the cat wound around his legs. The other two kids were coming over now that Deet, the bravest of the three of them—maybe even the four of them, if Gra counted himself—had proven it was safe.

“Are you going to keep her?” Brea asked, while Rian let the cat sniff and then rub her cheek against his knuckles.

“No,” Gra said, and before Mitjan could even give him a proper “oh, come _on_” look, Deet gazed up at him with wide eyes.

“_We_ can keep her, then!” she said, reaching for the cat again.

“_No_, Deet,” Mitjan sighed, while Gra mouthed an apology. “No pets until your brother’s older. We’ve talked about this.”

Deet drooped, then looked hopefully at Brea, who shook her head with such solemnity that Gra had to stifle a laugh. He knew that plan was a lost cause—both Brea’s mother and her eldest sister were allergic to cats. Tavra didn’t seem to have inherited that trait, though she didn’t seem particularly fond of the various cute-and-cuddlies of the neighborhood, either. While the trio at Gra’s feet were known to run up to any four-legged pet they saw and try to befriend it, Tavra had always been apathetic at best when it came to cats or dogs. She seemed to like Lore, though, and she’d taken horseback riding lessons for several years now, even working part-time at the stables.

She was also the only person Gra knew, besides Tek, who wasn’t afraid of spiders. He couldn’t even count the number of times he’d seen her go out with a drinking glass and a slip of paper to collect an offending arachnid, while the others huddles at the opposite end of the driveway, waiting for her to tell them the coast was clear. Even Deet’s fathers let her handle it while they stayed a safe distance away. They’d let Bobb’n go over to see one time, after the spider was securely contained, and Tavra had crouched down to let him look at the spider up-close through the glass, while Onica waited with the others and watched with a smile.

The two of them had taken an interesting and occasionally hilarious journey from friends to girlfriends, a journey that Gra had had the pleasure of witnessing from across the cul-de-sac. He’d accidentally caught Tavra sneaking out of her bedroom window after dark one evening, while he was taking the trash barrels down to the curb. At first he thought she might have been a burglar, and by the time he correctly identified her, she had spotted him, too, and it was too late for either one of them to pretend the situation wasn’t awkward. Tavra had been fairly young at the time, but already razor sharp, and while Gra had no intention of ratting her out to her mother, he was interested in hearing what her excuse would have been. Apparently, the most brilliant cover story she could come up with was blurting out, “I’m Seladon,” and then taking off into the night before Gra could respond.

“_Riiiaaan_…” the two girls were singing now, a little off-key. They looked at him imploringly, Deet giving him her best puppy eyes, knowing that he was their last hope to adopt the cat. Rian glanced at the cat, then at his friends, and flatly said, “Well, _I_ don’t want her.” When Deet wilted and Brea gave him a look that was a little less imploring than intimidating, Rian pointed up at Gra. “Hey, she chose _him_!”

“Yeah, lucky me,” Gra said, trying to shake some of the cat hair off his leg. Across the yard, Lath’n had appeared in the doorway with Bobb’n on his hip, politely but pointedly reminding his family that dinner was on the table and had sufficiently cooled off by now. Bobb’n cooed and reached a hand out instinctively when he saw the cat, and Mitjan quickly waved them back inside before he had to explain to yet another one of his children that they were not, in fact, adding a pet to their household.

“All right, time to break up the party,” he said, offering a hand to help Deet to her feet. “Rian, Brea, you two are welcome to stay for dinner if your parents are okay with it. You can call them inside, if you want.” He ushered them toward the walkway, and as he stooped to pick up the bucket of chalk, he gave the cat’s head a little ruffle. “Well…good luck with this,” he said, half humorously and half sympathetically. “We’ll ask around, see if anyone’s lost a cat recently, but otherwise, it looks like she’s all yours.”

“Yep,” Gra said, waving as Mitjan headed back inside. “Wonderful.”

He continued on his way home, refusing to look back, but the setting sun cast long shadows, and the cat’s was gaining on his. When they reached the driveway, Gra made one last-ditch attempt to shake her off. He turned around and took a sudden half-step toward her, deliberately scuffing his shoe on the ground. She stood where she was, unimpressed by his feint, and with a resigned sigh, Gra turned around and opened the door.

The cat wove past him without hesitation, nearly tripping him in the process. “No, by all means,” Gra said, following her inside. While she trotted into the family room and began inspecting the furniture, Gra peeked into the kitchen—empty, but filled with the smell of a promising dinner—and put his bags down on the kitchen table. “Hey, Goh?” he called. “You around?”

“Yeah,” Goh replied, coming down the hall.

“Is Lore in his room? Like, is the door closed?”

“_Yes_,” Goh said as he entered the kitchen, obviously taking the question as a passive-aggressive reminder about the hole in the fence. He brightened up a bit when he saw the bags on the table, though his face fell again when he picked up the ice cream carton. “Ah…” he said, sloshing its contents around. “We’re already…having…soup…”

“All right,” Gra said, taking the carton with a laugh, “you’re being a dick about it, but that was funny. Seriously, though, it’s like eighty-four degrees outside, gimme a break. It’ll refreeze.” He put the carton in the freezer and the soda bottles in the fridge, and when Goh started to shift their dinner off the stove, Gra scratched the back of his head. “Hey, so…I _might_ have brought home another surprise.”

Goh glanced at him, holding an empty ladle over the pot with one hand and a bowl with the other. “Huh?”

And right on time, out came the cat, emerging from behind the couch where she’d been hiding. There was a quiet _plunk_ as Goh dropped the ladle in surprise, which was luckily too tall to fully submerge in the soup. Gra took the bowl from him, too, just in case, and set it on the counter for the time being. “Yeah,” he said, both of them watching as the cat eyed Goh curiously, as if she were the longtime resident and he the newcomer. “She just kinda…tagged along on the way back from the store. Tried to shoo her off, but man, she’s persistent.”

“…um.” Goh pointed at the cat. “What?”

“Yeah, I dunno. She’s a stray, I guess. I don’t really know who she is or anything. Ma’am? Excuse me, ma’am? Who _are_ you?” Gra said, trying to catch the cat’s attention, who masterfully ignored him. He kept an eye on her as she continued her self-guided tour of his home. The place was decked out with tapestries and beaded wall hangings, and although she seemed well-behaved for a stray, Gra knew that if he were a cat, his number one priority would be to cause as much chaos in as short a time as he could.

“Why did you…bring her home?”

“I didn’t. She just invited herself. She doesn’t spook easily, I’ll give her that.” Gra snapped a few times to demonstrate, reaching out toward the cat as she did so. She flicked an ear in his direction, just to let him know that she heard him all right, and then went back to ignoring him. He dropped his arm and sighed. “I mean, she’s not aggressive or anything. I can probably catch her and chuck her out, if you want.”

“…where will she go…?”

Gra shrugged. “I dunno. Wherever? She _is_ a stray, I’m pretty sure. She’s gotta be used to getting booted out of places.”

Goh looked a little bothered as he fished the ladle back out of the pot, filling their bowls and putting some bread on Gra’s plate before handing it to him. “It’s going to get hotter…out…”

“Well, she should’ve stayed at the corner store, then,” Gra said, putting his dinner on the table but not sitting down yet. “They’ve got better air conditioning than we do.” Both of them stood behind their chairs, watching the cat impossibly squeeze herself and all of her fur between the couch and the wall again, to finish exploring. Gra rested his hand on his hip and glanced at Goh. “Your call. Want her gone?”

Goh thought about it for a few seconds, then shuffled across the kitchen and into the family room. The cat poked her head out, staying low to the ground, and watched as Goh opened the window just enough for her to fit through if she so desired. He looked down at the cat, pointed at her, then at the window, stood there until he felt like she comprehended what he was saying, and then he returned to the kitchen and took a seat.

“…yeah,” Gra said, “sure. All right. Dinner guest, then?”

“It’s up…to her,” Goh said, tearing off a piece of bread to dip in the soup. “I don’t mind her staying…but if she wants…to leave…she knows she can.”

Gra shook his head and sat down as well. “Guess this isn’t the first time we’ve taken in a stray for the night,” he said, waving the steam off his soup. “And hey, speaking of which, I heard from Mal the other day. He’s got a phone now.”

“Huh. Good…for him…”

Gra started on the soup, but he only got a few spoonfuls in before the cat emerged from behind the couch again, and when she saw the two of them sitting at the table, she made a beeline for the kitchen. She came right up to the table, made a figure eight around Gra’s feet, then sat beside Goh’s chair, staring up at him and yowling with complete abandon.

“Good…_grief_…”

“What is your _deal_?” Gra said, turning in his chair to face her. “You don’t _live_ here, you don’t get to _demand_ shit like this.”

She turned to face him as well, unleashing a cry that started off high and then dragged down to an almost comically low note, warbling and pitiful. She butted her head against his leg, batted him with her paw, and continued to cry at varying pitches until he finally stood up and went to the fridge. She stayed where she was until he pulled out a plate of leftover chicken, and then she bounced up to her feet and darted over. Gra worked quickly, cutting off the spicy outer layer and separating the tender white meat inside. When he’d made a small pile of it on another plate, he placed it on the floor, along with a dish of water, and the cat pounced immediately. By the time Gra had wrapped the dissected leftovers back up, put them away, and returned to the table, the cat had scarfed down her entire meal. She joined the pair at the table again, this time purring instead of crying. It was nearly as loud a sound, but infinitely more pleasant. Goh even put his hand down toward the end of his meal and let her rub her head against it.

After, when they were cleaning up the kitchen and the cat had moved on to inspecting their bedroom, Goh said, “So…what’s the plan…here?”

“First, can I just ask: did you seriously wait for her to leave the room before you started talking about her?”

Goh finished wiping down the table and grabbed two tall glasses, letting Gra get the sodas and ice cream from the fridge. “It’s called…manners,” he said, pouring the drinks while Gra added a scoop of ice cream to each. They sat down again, Goh trying to drink his root beer around the glacier of ice cream while Gra pushed his down to the bottom of his glass with a spoon, mixing it all together in a lumpy orange-and-cream smoothie.

“Well…I dunno,” Gra said, finally answering Goh’s question. “Lore’s gotta come out sometime. I guess we can let her stay the night, if she wants. Leave the window open a crack in case she decides to go. If she’s still hanging around tomorrow, I’ll take her to the vet and see if she’s, like, microchipped or something. Mitjan said he’d ask around, too. Maybe put up some flyers. I mean, she’s definitely a stray, but still…good to make sure.”

Goh nodded sagely, scooping up some melting ice cream as he watched the cat mosey back to the family room and hop onto the armchair, kneading the cushion happily, her purring audible all the way in the kitchen. “…she seems…friendly enough—“

“Stop,” Gra said. “If you’re thinking about keeping her, I’d just like to remind you that we’ve already done our adoption for the year. Plus, I seriously doubt Lore’s ever even seen a cat before, and I don’t think this cat’s ever seen an iguana, either. Those are two worlds that aren’t ready to collide.”

Goh continued to poke at his ice cream with the tip of his spoon, not pressing the issue and not even looking particularly disappointed. They finished what was left of their floats in silence, then went to the family room to digest. They sat on the sofa with their feet on the coffee table, across the room from the cat, who had curled up in the middle of the armchair and settled into a comfortable sleep. A few minutes went by, and then Gra said, “_Why_ do you want to keep her?”

Goh shrugged. “I figured…that was why you…brought her home…at first. As an…apology…gift.”

“The ice cream was the apology gift,” Gra said. “And you being snarky about it doesn’t cancel that out, by the way.”

Goh watched the cat, her steady breathing, the intermittent twitch at the tip of her tail, the way one of her paws continued to knead the cushion, even as she slept. “…we should…come up with…a name…for her…”

“_Goh_.”

“So you’re not just…calling her ‘ma’am’…all night.”

“Well, I’m gonna be ignoring her as much as possible.” Gra took a throw pillow from the corner of the couch and put it under his feet, crossing his ankles and arms as he disproved his own claim by staring straight at the cat. “…_if_ you were going to give her a name,” he began, already knowing what kind of Pandora’s box he was opening with the question, “what would you pick?”

Goh studied his whiskered muse as she slept. “…Fizz…”

“…Fizz?” Gra repeated, too confused to laugh. “You mean Fuzz? Fuzz…ball? Fuzzface? Why ‘Fizz?’ Why would we call her—why would _anyone_ call a cat ‘Fizz?’”

“…gig.”

Gra stared at him. “Okay,” he said, as if that settled things. “All right. It’s finally happened. I no longer understand what the ever-loving fuck you’re saying. Never thought I’d live to see the day, but whooo boy, you never cease to surprise me. You know if you had a stroke, there’s like a sixty percent chance I wouldn’t even realize at this point, right? I mean, it’s not just that you talk _slow_, it’s like you talk in _italics_. _Bold_ italics. Every single word you say weighs at least ten pounds. I lose energy just _listening_ to you sometimes.”

Goh had been inhaling deeply all throughout Gra’s little rant, revving up for an equally deep sigh. “_Fizzgig_,” he said, and then leaned back against the couch, as if his work was done. Gra rubbed his eyes.

“That’s not even a _name_. You’re just smushing random sounds together.”

“How…do you think…names…get…created?” Goh asked, scooting up to Gra’s side and resting his head on his shoulder. “It’s a good…name. It’s cute…and a little…weird…like her…”

Gra snorted. “A _little_ weird. Did you _hear_ the noises she was making earlier?” Goh didn’t answer, and when Gra glanced at him, he saw that he’d already closed his eyes. Gra slumped down a little, to make his shoulder easier to reach, and looked at the cat again. “…suits her, I guess,” he admitted. “Sounds like a name for someone with a big personality. Like this house doesn’t have enough of those already.”

“…I have…a soft spot…for things with…big personalities…”

As usual, that was all it took for Gra’s lingering annoyance to melt away. He rested his head against Goh’s, closing his eyes. “What’s goin’ on with you today, anyway?” he asked quietly. “You’ve been…slow.”

“…I’m always…slow…”

“Slower than usual, though. Not, like, _thoughtfully_ slow. Listlessly slow.” Gra nudged his head. “You feelin’ okay? Did you skip some vitamins this morning?”

“…nah…”

“Anything bothering you? Do you feel sick? You could be coming down with something.”

“I’m fine. It’s just an off…day…”

“…every day’s an off day for us. We’re eccentric and unpredictable.”

Goh opened his eyes to think this over. “…maybe it was…an ‘on’ day…then…”

“Well, I don’t like it,” Gra said, his frustration flaring up again. “On, off—whatever it was, I don’t like it. We’ve been like two halves of one manic depressive today. We gotta get back to being our weird and wild selves. First step: I’m gonna give Tek a call before it gets too late, see if he can help us out with our little guest here.”

Gra carefully nudged Goh’s head off his shoulder and heaved himself off the couch, briefly wondering why something called a “float” could make him feel as if he were ten pounds heavier. He only took one step before Goh caught his hand and said, “Hey…” Gra leaned back down, and Goh sat up a few inches to kiss him gently. “I…love you…you know.”

“Yeah,” Gra said, giving him a quick kiss on the forehead. “Love ya, too.”

They parted ways for the time being—Goh sitting with the newly-anointed Fizzgig while Gra scheduled a vet appointment, then gave Tek a ring. He asked his neighbor if he had any cat supplies lying around that he wouldn’t mind donating, and Tek responded by barking out a single laugh and hanging up the phone. When Gra called him back and asked a second time, Tek said, “Oh, wow. You were serious. No, nothing for felines. Or canines, for that matter—whatever I had, I already gave to you when you took Enzo.”

“Lore.”

“Yes. Well, unless your new pet—”

“She’s not a pet. She’s a stray.”

“Is she on a piece of your furniture right now?”

Gra glanced at the cat, who lay stretched out on the cushioned footrest, showing her belly to Goh as he tickled it gently with his fingertip. “…look, can you help us out, or not?”

Tek sighed, a whiny but abrasive sound, like air slowly let out of a balloon and into a desk fan. He reiterated that unless the cat could subsist on a diet of frozen mice and live crickets, he didn’t have much to offer. But before he hung up, and after more than a little wheedling from Gra, Tek conceded that he could probably scrounge around for a spare pet taxi, if they needed to transport their furry friend to the vet or the shelter.

The cat—who Gra was trying to avoid referring to by name for as long as possible—behaved like she was right at home, which Goh found endearing and Gra found presumptuous. She waited in the hall while they brushed their teeth, seeming to understand that they were getting ready for bed. She even tried to nudge her way into Lore’s room when Goh cracked the door open to check on him. Asleep, as usual. Unaware that there was anything amiss in their household. Goh almost envied him—he’d always been a deep sleeper, but he was starting to think that he could learn a thing or two from this iguana, stretched out contentedly on his homemade jungle gym.

When they went to bed, Goh managed to convince Gra to leave the door to their room open, just in case Fizzgig got lonely. Gra grumbled about it, but aside from her initial curiosity when they settled in and turned off the lights, Fizzgig didn’t seem interested in spending the night with them. She wandered back out to the family room, where Gra had left the window ajar, hoping she might take the hint, pull a Mal after all, and slip out at sunrise.

* * *

When Gra went to the family room the next morning, Fizzgig was sleeping directly on the windowsill, as close as she could get to the outdoors without actually leaving. It was such a deliberate and passive aggressive move that Gra was almost impressed. He didn’t have much time to dwell on it before she woke up and noticed him, and immediately demanded breakfast, breaking the tenuous respect he’d started to develop for her. “The _nerve_ of you, _honestly_,” he said as she half-followed, half-led him into the kitchen, sitting so close to the refrigerator door in anticipation that he had to nudge her out of the way with his foot to open it.

Around mid-morning, he took her to the vet’s office, where he learned for sure what he’d already assumed: the cat wasn’t chipped, and in all likelihood, she was just a well-socialized and well-fed stray. So there went one of Gra’s many justifications for not keeping her.

Still, some kind of bond had been established. When the vet chuckled at the name “Fizzgig,” Gra said, “What’s so funny?” challenging her to dare say anything disparaging about the absurdly stupid name his husband had picked out. And when the vet was preparing the vaccination, Fizzgig got low on the tabletop, let out a prolonged and pitiful cry, and slunk over to Gra, trying to hide her face in his shirt. Gra sighed and gently maneuvered her back to the vet, unable to resist asking, “Why me?”

She cried all the way back to the house, from the confines of the pet carrier in the backseat. When Gra brought her inside and placed the carrier on the floor, opening its door wide, Fizzgig quieted down and took one step, then another. Half in and half out, she paused and glanced at Gra, who gestured across the room and said, “Go on.”

She finished stepping out of the crate and looked up at him again, then blinked, arched her back briefly against his leg, and wandered off down the hall. Gra followed her after he put the carrier in the storage closet—noting that this implied, on some level at least, that he intended to keep it.

The two of them went to the sliding door to the backyard, where Goh and Lore were outside, enjoying the sun. Lore was basking on a rock while Goh was kneeling by the corner of the fence, hammering the last few nails into place to patch up the hole. Gra opened the door a bit and squeezed through, keeping his leg in the way so Fizzgig couldn’t follow him out. He shut the door on her and headed across the yard, while she watched through the glass in astonishment and disbelief at being so rudely denied.

“Hey,” Gra said, drumming his fingers lightly on the top of Goh’s head, just for fun, and then helping him to his feet once he drove in the final nail. “Looks good.”

“Yeah…” Goh said, testing the fence with his foot and brushing the dust off his knees. “How’d it…go?”

“Fine. No injuries, no parasites. But no chip, either. Vet said she’d call with the results of the tests and stuff, but otherwise, she seems fine.”

Goh nodded slowly. “You still want to…put up some…flyers?”

“…ehh…” Gra looked back at the glass door, where Fizzgig was standing on her hind legs, her front paws up above her head and squeaking as she pulled them slowly down the glass, her mouth open in an unheard, plaintive cry for attention. “…maybe later.”

They sat with Lore for a while, occasionally giving him a little stroke on his head, but mostly letting him sunbathe. After half an hour or so, with Fizzgig still staring at them through the glass, Goh suggested letting her out to explore. “She might leave…on her own,” he pointed out. “But if she doesn’t…then…she and Lore should meet. I don’t want to…keep him shut away…in his room…”

Gra sighed, but he got up without protest and went to the door. “All right,” he said skeptically, sliding it open. “Let’s see how the kiddos get along.”

Fizzgig stepped outside—not before giving Gra a judgmental look for taking so long—and spent a few minutes sniffing the air and scoping out the patio. It took her a while to even notice Lore, who was still lying on his rock with his eyes closed. When Fizzgig finally spotted him, she froze, her eyes widening and her tail twitching warily. But, like most cats, her curiosity got the better of her, and she padded over to the rock slowly, encouraged by the sight of Goh sitting calmly by Lore’s side. She went to him first, accepting a few pats on the head without taking her eyes off Lore for a second. She stretched her neck out to sniff him, and when he stirred and opened his eyes, blinking in the sunlight, she drew back quickly in surprise, causing him to do the same.

Goh chuckled, giving Fizzgig another encouraging pat while Lore got his bearings. He pushed himself up with his front legs, eyeing Fizzgig carefully, and she leaned forward again to sniff him. For the next twelve seconds or so, they checked each other out, watched how the other moved, and then, when the novelty and surprise had worn off, Fizzgig trotted off to inspect the rest of the yard while Lore lowered himself onto the rock again, soaking its sun-baked warmth into his belly.

“…guess that’s…that,” Goh said, sounding satisfied.

“Guess so,” Gra agreed.

They kept an eye on the two of them for a while longer, but when it was clear that there would be no fur flying, figuratively or literally, they decided to get on with their day. Fizzgig didn’t spend long outside—her fluffy coat heated up fast, and soon she was back in the family room, curled up on the footrest by the armchair again, making no secret of the fact that she clearly considered it to be her spot. Around mid-afternoon, Gra and Goh brought the kiddie pool out front to a shady spot, and it didn’t take long for the neighborhood kids to gather, demanding their promised playdate with Lore, along with their popsicles and cash. Brea and Deet took their shoes off and sat directly in the pool with Lore, while Rian stayed by the edge. He occasionally flicked some water at his friends, but surrendered with good-natured laughter when they splashed him back twice as hard.

When they all returned to their respective homes for dinner, and Gra and Goh did the same, Fizzgig was already waiting impatiently for them in the kitchen. Gra gave her half a can of the food the vet sent him home with, while Goh made up a dish for Lore. After they’d all eaten and the sun had started to set, Fizzgig curled up for another nap—this time in Lore’s dog bed by the window. Lore waddled over and paused, and Gra and Goh watched from the couch, curious to see how he would handle this intrusion in his space.

Lore took a couple of slow steps forward, moving his head around at different angles, as if to ascertain that the fluffy thing in his bed was the same creature he’d met earlier in the yard. After a minute of that, he stepped closer, cautiously, and then just carefully, trying not to step directly on her. He maneuvered himself into the empty space in his bed, closing his eyes as he settled down, pressed up against Fizzgig. She didn’t stir, except to nuzzle her own face deeper into her paws, drifting off into a sounder sleep.

Goh had to fight back an _aww_ at the sight. “So…” he said instead. “Does this mean…we have…a cat…now?”

Gra watched the two of them lying there on the bed, curled around each other like a yin yang of fur and spines. He sighed. “No,” he said, firmly and decisively. Goh deflated a bit, but Gra wrapped his arm around his shoulders and pulled him closer, kissing the side of his head.

“The cat has us.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, so, sorry for taking so goddamn long to update this fic. It's been quite a decade, this year. But I figure now's the time when we can all benefit from a little zany, wholesome, gay hippie energy in our lives.  
Hope you're all staying as safe as you possibly can.


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